Back To The Gelli Plate I Go!

Since my last post of working with my homemade Gelli Plate, I have come to the conclusion that I was using the wrong side to print on. The side of the plate that I was using had lots of ridges and texture.  I believe that it was laid out onto plastic wrap to dry.  Since I had no control on how it was made, I wanted to figure out a way to fix the problem.  Yes I could have flipped the Gelli Plate over, but I found that the back wasn't quite a flat surface either. Back to the instructions I go! The instructions state that if the Gelli Plate was damaged in any way to place it in a microwave. I found a flat glass dish to put it in and placed it in the microwave for a minute. I stuck around to watch closely so that nothing went wrong. Once the Gelli Plate was melted, I took it out of the microwave and laid it on the counter. There were several bubbles, so I took a toothpick and tried to pop each one.  I never thought popping bubbles would be such hard work! I had forgotten how much gelatin smells, so don't be surprised to smell something foul coming from the kitchen. When the gel was dry, I took a bendable spatula and gently separated the sides from the glass. This allowed me to pick up the gel as a whole to get it out of the glass dish. I placed the Gelli Plate back onto the cardboard surface I was keeping it on. Now to apply paint to see if it creates a better monoprint.

To begin I made sure my Gelli Plate was clean. I wiped it down with a baby wipe.

I added color by dropping dots of acrylic paint all around the plate.

I rolled out the paint with my brayer making sure to cover all the edges.

Now it was time to stamp my little heart out. I found a bamboo stamp that I thought would be good to repeat all over my plate.

I am really enjoying using black cardstock to make my prints, so here I go placing it onto the plate.

Once the paper has been pressed with the rolling of the brayer, it was time to peel the paper off the plate very gently.  For some reason a lot of the ink was left behind on the plate.  I did two points on this plate after reheating it, and the paint sticks a lot more than before. I'm not sure what that's all about, but there is an abundant amount of cleanup to be had.

Print #1 Using Peacock Stamp

Print #2 Using Bamboo Stamp

I really enjoy how simple these prints turned out. They look very primitive-like. Now on to cut these prints down and add more detail. I'm glad I faced the problem head on to come up with a solution.  What problems have you had (if any) while working with the Gelli Plate?  Happy Printing!