Gelli Prints

Hi, everyone!  Welcome, I'm so glad to have you visit.   Today I'm going to share the work from a class I took using the Gelli Plates.  I had avoided getting into Gelli printing because I really didn't want another tool to work with (crazy, I know) and I really didn't like a lot of the prints I was seeing online.  Too many colors in one print and too random for my taste as a background.  So, I kept avoiding the whole topic.  Several people were telling me I really should try it because I'd be hooked, but I resisted.  And, then a friend of my daughter's bought a small plate, 5x7", and brought it over for us to play with.  I realized that if you didn't use  too many colors at one time you could come out with some good papers.  So, I, along with my daughter and her friend signed up for the basic Gelli Plate class at The Queen's Ink.  We had a great afternoon and we left with two little books full of papers made in the class. 

 

 

 

The covers are book board which we covered with the sheets that we used to clean off the plate.   Truthfully, they ended up being some of my favorite prints of all!  We used sticky back canvas that we printed for a spine binding.  I may eventually embellish the covers but for now this is how they look. 

 

For the pages we used unlined index cards to make the prints.  Terry, the instructor who does great Gelli prints, brought in all kinds of things to create texture on the plate.  We used stencils and masks, the bottoms of cut up flip-flops(!), textured wall papers, sequin waste, the list is endless!   To make the pages we folded the cards in half and glued the them together.  It's a really quick way to make a little journal.  I'm going to use mine to record quotes and do some Zentangles.  I've done a bit of both in one of the books. 

 

The rest of this post is going to be pictures of some of the prints in the books.  Enjoy!

 

 

 



I used metallic copper paint and a piece of textured wall paper.  I really like this one a lot!  Some sage green paint from a previous print showed up in some areas.

 

 

 

I didn't like the colors I got with the first pull so I put cream paint over the plate and ran a comb through it.  Voila!  I liked it  with the previous colors just peeking through.

 

 

 

I did some tangling on this spread and used a quote that I've always loved.  There will be more of these as I work in the books!

 

 

The leaf shapes were from a mask that I laid down on the plate before I printed. 

 

By using just a copper paint and a light blue paint I was able to control the colors.  The picture doesn't show the copper metallic well but it looks great having that glimmer show though.

 

This print I did when our friend brought her plate over to play with.  I used a leaf embossing plate on one side.  I liked the print so much that I used the new TH leaf die and embossing folder to cut a leaf.   The colors were so fall like and there is a copper glimmer on this one too!

 

 

 

I found that the prints I liked best were the ones where I was better able to control the colors.  And, some of the textures were great.  I also discovered I loved metallic paint peeking through.  The glimmer is very cool. 

 

 

I'm glad I bought the plate.  I like the papers I made with it and I want to work more with colors combinations and the metallic paints.  I'm sure you'll be seeing more backgrounds in my work that I've created using my Gelli Plate.

 

 

Thank you for visiting with me today.  I'm glad I got to share my first adventures with the Gelli Plate with you.  I hope you have a wonderful day and a great week.