Had a fabulous couple of hours printing with friends the other day.
Over the previous week I'd watched a couple of very good dvds from the library about collage, pattern and printing by Anne Bagby.
She is an expert on getting fabulous prints from tiles so I had high hopes for my printing on glass experiments. Alas, very disappointing.
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| Left print from Gelli Plate - Right print from Glass |
I will try the glass printing just one more time - perhaps a day just devoted to glass printing might help me focus on what went wrong. But for now my answers to the question : Why would you use a Gelli plate instead of a glass plate?
1. The Gelli plate is a fun and easy option for the new user - we had hardly any prints that weren't successful
2. More flexibility of mark-making options - the stencils and masks work brilliantly with the gelli plate - last time the stencils didn't work at all on the glass when left in place
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Left print pulled with stencil in place
Right print second pull with stencil removed |
3. You can get very detailed images from the Gelli plate
Deli paper (dry waxed paper) is a wonderful surface to print to. It was hard to source in New Zealand under that name, but this lunchwrap brand seems to do the job nicely - a great cheap option.
The foam plates I'd made worked brilliantly.
And this is the print I got from the plate to clean it after making the marks on the gelli plate - works well as a stamp
The background to the plate below is combination of foam plate (triangles), bubble wrap, a seed head stamp, and the swirls are a piece of card from an embossing machine. The bird is a mask
And this is the resulting print
The magic of revealing a masked plate ::
But it could be better. I love how these turned out from Rhonda on sheet music and a book page.
The mask of the lady now covered in lovely paint will be a great new collage element somewhere
And some prints started off as a 'failure' - the below paint was too light on the deli paper. Pulled again onto dark card, Katherine created this gorgeous ethereal piece
It is so worth getting friends together for a playday, because you learn so much more from each other than doing it alone. What if....
Both friends want a Gelli plate of their own now - totally sold on how fabulous they are.
I think this is only part 1 of a series of posts on gelli printing - had fun with the first layer, but lots more needs to happen here....stay tuned
