Gelli plate printing

Several months ago I won a 6" x 6" Gelli printing plate from fellow blogger, Judy Carpenter. I have been looking forward to trying it out, but couldn't seem to get to it until today. Neat idea and easy to use.

Here is my setup:

Gelli plate at left. It is a smooth piece of something (plastic, silicone, ??) that has the feel of those gelli window decal things. Firm rubber brayer, acrylic plate for rolling paint out on and paint. I used inexpensive acrylic paints for experimenting.

Squeeze some paint out on the acrylic palette and roll it out with the brayer until it is mixed as wanted. Then roll a thin layer of paint onto the gel plate. Make marks in paint, then lay a piece of fabric or paper face down on the plate and smooth it carefully so it will pick up the paint from the plate.

I crumpled up a piece of paper, opened it up and carefully pressed it into the paint here. This is the resulting print:

For another I used a bamboo skewer whose point I had blunted with sandpaper, and drew into the paint on the plate.

I think the most interesting and successful prints were made using some of my collection of Indonesian printing blocks, pressed into the paint.

This one was pretty boring, so I printed over it.

The new print is the one at the top of the blog.

These are the prints. Some were pretty exciting, some were so-so and some are not at all interesting. Those might get a second round one of these days.

I think this was my favorite.

I'm not sure how I will use these, but it is always good to have a new technique in my back pocket.