Dive into the vibrant world of Gelli Plate Printing Techniques with our latest blog post, exploring various methods to unleash your creativity on the printing plate. From utilizing fat Sharpie markers for bold designs to the delicate art of creating layered leaf prints and experimenting with stencils for intricate patterns, these techniques cover a broad spectrum of artistic expressions.
Gelli Print Tutorial – Overpainting
In this video tutorial on Gelli Plate Printing Techniques, Gabrielle introduces a technique for overpainting on gelli prints to fill in negative spaces and create vivid images of birds and leaves. The process begins with creating a base layer using Payne’s grey and aquamarine blue to establish dark tones. Gabrielle uses mark-making tools, including bubble wrap and children’s art stamps, to create patterns and textures. She focuses on creating spaces for color to show through by removing parts of the dark layer, especially planning for printing leaf shapes in reverse.
Next, Gabrielle applies warm-colored acrylic paints with a makeup sponge, emphasizing that despite seemingly covering the textures, these serve as the underlayer. She ensures the underlayer is dry before proceeding to avoid smudging. Gabrielle places colors where she envisions leaves and birds. Using a cheap, watery white acrylic, a layer is applied to lift the entire layer underneath. Despite minor printing gaps, she notes these are minor issues as the final step involves painting over these areas, suggesting this method is also an excellent way to repurpose less successful prints.
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Gelli Print Session – Stencils and Rubber Stamps
In this lesson on Gelli Plate Printing Techniques, Randy from Dreamy Bohemian demonstrates one of her gelli printing sessions focusing on stencil and rubber stamp techniques. She begins by discussing keeping separate brayers for cool and warm colors to avoid unwanted color mixing, which can result in muddy prints. Randy selects a dark pink paint for the base layer and plans to overlay it with a lighter shade, mentioning her preference for larger brayers to achieve a smooth application without the line marks smaller brayers leave.
As she applies a thin, even layer of dark paint on the gelli plate, followed by a lighter color, Randy ensures the sizes of the gelli plate, stencils, and paper are compatible. She opts for 24-pound copy paper as the minimum to prevent tearing. The next step involves pressing heavily into the stencil placed over the painted gelli plate to transfer the pattern effectively. Randy advises using the right amount of paint and applying proper pressure to avoid damaging the paper.
She then introduces a detailed technique using a clamped stencil with swirls. She presses the paper into the swirls, capturing all negative spaces and transferring the paint beneath the stencil onto the paper.
This step requires patience as she presses the paper thoroughly onto the plate, resulting in a beautifully detailed print. Randy advises allowing the print to dry completely before proceeding to avoid smudging.
The session progresses with the application of buttermilk-colored paint over the stencil print. It’s important that paint be well mixed and dry to prevent ruining the stencil design. Another piece of paper is pressed onto this layer to pick up the intricate design, and Randy notes the effect of the sequence in which materials are applied on the resulting print’s foreground and background.
Incorporating rubber stamps into her process, Randy selects a Villa green color for added detail. She encounters and swiftly resolves an issue with dry paint, suggesting cleaning wipes on hand for quick cleanups. Randy’s approach throughout the session is meticulous, focusing on layering, pressing, and detailing to create visually compelling gelli prints. Her detailed explanation offers insights into the complexities of gelli printing, demonstrating her expertise and passion for the craft.
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Gelli Printing Techniques: Secret Mark Making Method
In this Gelli Plate Printing Techniques, Froyle embarks on an artistic adventure with Week 11 of 100 Days of Collage, focusing on yellow, a hue she typically finds challenging. She turns to the gelli plate, experimenting with yellow oxide, Naples yellow, white, unbleached titanium, and gold paints. Without a precise plan, she applies the colors to the plate, aiming for a spontaneous and vibrant outcome.
The result is more satisfying than she anticipated, producing prints with splotchy marks and abstract patterns that she finds appealing. She notes that the Naples yellow doesn’t blend as smoothly as she’d like, but she appreciates the textured, gold abstract appearance it contributes to the prints. Froyle encourages individual preference in mixing colors, favoring a more abstract, textured look.
She creates background prints using rice paper and wet tissue, demonstrating the diverse textures and effects achievable with different substrates. Then, she hints at demonstrating her secret technique for creating fabulous textures, which she plans to use extensively in her series on the color spectrum. Despite typically waiting for the backgrounds to dry before adding more texture, her impatience leads her to proceed, revealing stunning results that highlight her love for the glorious yellow and the intricate textures she can achieve on the gelli plate.
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Tiny Tips Ep. 9 – Fat Marker on Gelli Plate | Gelli Printing with Sharpie Markers
In this “Tiny Tips” episode on Gelli Plate Printing Techniques, Susan Clifton explores using a fat Sharpie marker on a gelli plate for gelli printing, incorporating multiple layers into her artwork. She starts by drawing straight and curvy lines with the Sharpie on the plate, adding dabs of ink for the design before letting it dry. Then, Susan applies a layer of teal paint over the dried Sharpie ink and uses a cleanup sheet with a stencil to pick up the blue paint. However, she notices that this process also lifts some of the Sharpie ink, affecting the intensity of the black lines.
To address this, Susan suggests avoiding complex stencils if you want the Sharpie lines to remain entirely black and suggests a more straightforward approach without using stencils for coloring. Next, she experiments with a mix of quinacridone nickel azo gold and titanium white paint directly on the plate, adding texture with stamping. She checks the progress by peeking underneath before applying a phthalo green shade to highlight her stamped patterns, using copy paper to lift the paint.
Despite liking the outcome, she observes how the stencil process can inadvertently lift the Sharpie ink, suggesting an alternative method to preserve the marker’s vibrancy. In a subsequent attempt, Susan applies paint through a stencil to prevent the stencil from removing the Sharpie ink, using primary magenta and alizarin crimson for additional masked shapes. This method involves pressing in negative parts of stencils she created for unique shapes, ensuring not to leave them on the plate to maintain the design’s integrity before stamping again for added texture.
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Layered Leaf Prints on the Gel Plate – Gel
In this Gelli Plate Printing Techniques, Teresa Auden revisits one of her favorite gel printing techniques, using acrylic paint and leaves to create beautiful, detailed prints perfect for framing or papercraft projects. She shares her enthusiasm for this method, especially in autumn when leaves are abundantly available in her UK garden. The technique focuses on transferring the intricate details of leaves onto prints, resulting in stunning, botanical-inspired artwork.
For this gelli printing project, Teresa selects a variety of leaves from her garden for their beauty, natural shapes and textures. She uses a 6-inch square gel press plate, which she finds suitable for the size of the collected leaves. She prepares mixed media paper cut to 6.5 inches square to accommodate the prints, slightly larger than her plate.
The paints she chooses are DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in warm tones, including green gold, phthalo green yellow, cobalt turquoise hue, phthalo turquoise, diarylide yellow, pyrrole orange, quinacridone magenta, quinacridone gold, and quinacridone violet. These colors reflect the autumnal theme and enhance the natural beauty of the leaves.
Teresa demonstrates the step-by-step process, encouraging you to enjoy the process. She provides tips for achieving the best results, such as selecting the proper size leaves for the plate used and choosing colors that complement the natural hues of the leaves. The outcome is a series of exquisite prints that capture the essence of autumn and its vibrant colors.
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