Gelli Plates Printing

A few years ago, the only way to make a gelatin print was to make a gelatin printing plate. The process was tedious, and the plates were temperamental, often disintegrating within an hour. That’s all in the past. Thanks to Gelli Arts, the soft and spongy Gelli Printing Plate is here to stay!

 

- Deborah Nolan

Tools & Products

Gelli Plate printing requires a Gelli Plate, a tool to apply paint, impression-making items (many found in a crafter’s stash), and paper or fabric on which to print.

Gelli Arts offers a variety of square and rectangular plate sizes (3 x 5–12 x 14-inch), round plates (4–8-inch) and mini plates in circles, squares, rectangles, ovals, hexagons and triangles (approximately 3 inches).

Gelli Arts recommends acrylic and oil paints for best results. Golden Artist paints are available in tubes which are very convenient to use to squeeze portions onto the plate. Ranger’s Dylusion paints come in jars but can easily be dolloped onto the plate with a craft stick.

Inks can be used but will permanently stain the plate. Although staining won’t affect future prints, it can hinder design visualization.

In addition to products specifically manufactured for art and crafting, there is an endless supply of household items that can make impressions in the paint: crumpled paper, plastic wrap, rubber bands, bubble wrap, plastic bottle caps, twine, corrugated cardboard, feathers, corks, combs, etc. Avoid anything with sharp or pointed edges that will mar the plate’s surface. Permanent scratches and gouging will appear in all future prints.

Using heavier-weight paper helps prevent buckling—especially if printing one sheet multiple times. Dylusions tags, journals and journal insert sheets by Ranger are exceptionally good choices. All three have white, matte, non-pilling paper. The journal insert sheets and tags are also available in black and kraft.