The Wonderful World Of Gelli Plate Printing!

The Options Are Endless!

I have a new found love! The Gelli Plate. It is great to use when making monoprints for creating backgrounds or fabulous pieces of art on their own. JennyAnnARtist introduced me to the Gelli Plate awhile back, but I haven't gotten a chance to experiment with it until now. She was awesome enough to give me a homemade Gelli Plate that she had received at a workshop. I had no idea how to use this, so I headed on over to YouTube for some visual inspiration. I found a couple of great videos that showed just how to create with it.

The first video I found gives a great introduction to using the Gelli Plate.

The second video I found goes more in depth on using stencils and stamping. She even stamps on muslin, which I was super excited about because I love working with fabric.

The last video I found very interesting because she makes her own stamps out of foam sheets.  I just love her accent and how she calls it funky foam.

To start I went through all of my supplies to see what I had to use for creating a monoprint. I knew I didn't have hardly any stencils, but I did find that I had a lot of stamps that Mom had given me with all the jewelry goodies months before. In the videos they say to use the cheap craft acrylic paint and a brayer. I had a few bottles of craft paint left over from previous projects.  I guess now I'm ready to get started!

Here is my Gelli Plate all ready to go. Make sure that your plate is on a flat surface, and that you do not use sharp objects on the plate. Since this is a homemade Gelli Plate, if it gets cut for any reason, it can be heated to melting point and laid out to dry so it can be used again.

Gelli Plate, Brayer, Sponge, Acrylic Paint

I picked a few colors and put a few dots of paint onto the Gelli Plate. If there's anything that you learn quickly from the videos is to use less paint. The plate does not absorb the paint. It just lays on top waiting to be soaked up by the paper, so a little goes a long way.

Adding Paint to Gelli Paint

I rolled the brayer over the paint, first horizontally, then vertically to create a blending effect among the paint.

Using Brayer To Roll Out Paint

I found a cat stamp I had made out of funky foam awhile back. It was used to make a t-shirt for a friend's birthday. I placed the stamp on the plate and pressed down gently.  The process was repeated until there were six cats stamped on the plate.

Stamping with Funky Foam Cat

Next I sponged some texture into the Gelli Plate. It's very hard to see the stamping, but it shows up beautifully when you press your paper to it to create a print.

Using Sponge To Create More Texture

In all the videos I watched, they only stuck to using white cardstock or heaving art paper.  I will say there was one instance where one of the tutorials showed using a wallpaper sample. Which by the way came out pretty amazing! I wondered what black paper would look like since most of what I'd seen was white paper being used. I had several packages of black cardstock left over from a friend's wedding last year.  This would give me plenty to experiment with.

Black Cardstock on Gelli Plate To Create Print

I placed my paper on top of the plate and rolled my brayer onto the back.  This killed two birds with one stone. It took the excess paint off the brayer and pressed the paint to create the print on the other side. This fantastic idea came from one of the video tutorials, so you've gotta watch them.😉

First Print Created On Black Cardstock

When I was finished with the brayer, I pulled the paper gently off the plate.  I was disappointed to find that my cat stencil didn't show up very well.  However, I very much loved the texture. I was also intrigued by how the black paper intensified the color combinations used on the plate. This made me want to do more!

2nd Print In Process

For this next print, I came across the spider girl stencil I made of my daughter several years back.  I wanted to see how this would work over using a stamp. I pressed gently into the paint with a block stamp. Then, I added the spider girl stencil, wet side up, onto the Gelli Plate.  The stencil was wet from previous use as seen in the first picture below. I placed the paper on top of the stencil and rolled the brayer over the entire page to create another print. Once again I really loved the contrast of the black paper with the vibrant colors.

3rd Print, Stencil Is Dry When Printing

4th Print, Stencil, Wet Side Up, While Printing.

On this next print, I used a cardboard stencil made from some scrapbooking cut outs. I placed the stencil onto the inked plate. I then used the sponge to tap paint into the stenciled area. I repeated this process until I came across the plate. I found a stamp of birds flying and figured this would be great to stamp them flying out of the trees. I used a wide toothed comb to scratch off paint from the surface of the plate. When this was done I placed my paper onto the plate, used the brayer, then peeled the paper of gently.

5th Print, Used Tree Stencil, Wide Toothed Come, Bird Stamps

In my opinion the trees and birds came out pretty blurring, but I very much like the composition as a whole. I really enjoy the vertical lines created by the wide toothed comb.

5th Print Completed

Since watching those video tutorials, I had to experiment with printing on fabric.  I used white muslin. It was a nice change of pace after using all of that black paper. I wanted to see how the prints varied from paper to textile, and from switching colors from white to black. In the video she stated that when printing on fabric the more paint the merrier.  The fabric needs a lot more paint to absorb the print into the fabric. After laying down a thick layer of paint with my brayer, I sponged the plate overall, and then stamped the flying birds once again. When I was finished, I placed the fabric on top to print. I thought it would be best to use my hands to press down onto the plate instead of using the brayer.  I felt the brayer would bunch the fabric in places, thus ruining the print.

Printing With White Muslin

I really like how the white muslin creates a subtle print. The colors are still vibrant but the contrast is subtle.

1st Print On Muslin

The last print I did was a repetitive stamp into the paint. It reminds me of a paisley print, which I just adore. I'm quit partial to paisleys.

Last Print Created Using Paisley Pattern

Since using this homemade Gelli Plate, I have come to the conclusion that it is great to use if you want a constant built in texture in every print. This plate if you look closely is not a flat surface. There are a lot of shallow ridges that were created from the clear plastic wrap that it was wrapped with when I received it. This already made texture can interfere with stenciling, stamping, or any process you choose to use to create a print. The Gelli Plates used in the video tutorials seem to be a very flat surface. 

Now that I have tried this Gelli Plate, I would love to learn more. I will continue to experiment with the many wonders of the Gelli Plate.  If you have any techniques that you would like to share, please comment below.  Happy Printing!