2LO Texture-Making Class : Gelatin Plate MonoPrints

 

Continuing with 2 Lil' Owls online texture-making class, this time with mono prints off of a gelatin (Gelli) plate.    I actually made my own gelatine plate with glycerine and good ol' Knox gelatin.  Simple and affordable ingredients.  The brand name Gelli plate is a little pricey--I didn't want to invest $30 only to use it once.  And the gelatine-only plates are a bit too delicate and not long-lasting enough--and I don't want it to take up space in the fridge.  With the DIY model, it's a smaller investment, long-lasting--and I think it works just as well.

 Gelli Printing with Found Objects video 

There are also a multitude of Gelli printing tutorials on Pinterest to explore.  So many possibilities!

[Idaho Beauty--I would recommend you give this a try.  The gelatine plate has a lot more "give" than glass or other hard printing surfaces, and it's amazing how the paint is lifted off the pad with the print paper. ] 

All told, I pulled about 25 8-1/2 x 11 inch prints that day.   I won't bore you with all of them, just a few of my favorites.  Enjoy!  ;-)

Here are the results of my gelatine plate Play Date :

This was the first one I pulled off the plate.    

Good enough to keep going to try more ... 

After that I mixed in other colors -- like Black since I still had India Ink fresh in my mind.  

I love how there are traces of the last pull on this one ...

Then on to purple and gold metallic paint.  Mmmhh!

Some of them even came out like watercolors -- This was aided by the fact that I sprayed some water on the plate to help any residual paint lift off onto the next print.   I like this effect, too!

 

The Gelli Prints video above showed this technique.  It will take some practice to make it look part of a well-planned composition.  But for now, it was fun to just try it and see how things come out ...

Denise is right!  Even the "junk" pages you use to unload your brayers can come out pretty, too!  These make interesting abstract pieces, too, with a transparent quality -- like glass suncatchers.

Here are the prettiest pages I used to unload the brayers :