Reading Martha’s recent posts about her experiments with Gelli Plates did two things; it rekindled my interest in print making, and it encouraged me to buy a Gelli Plate. Tony is working in Wanganui today on the ambulance, and left at 5.45 so I have had all day on my own. My sister Ailsa and nephew Rowan arrived on Friday to visit Mum, but left at 11am this morning. Incidentally, Mum was delighted to see Rowan and knew who he was almost straight away. On the other hand she thought the wool scarf I was carrying was our dog, Faith. Go figure!
Anyway…I did a bit of work that needed seeing to, did the washing and the dishes and so on, then out with the Gelli Plate and some Golden Fluid Acrylics, plus some stencils I had cut a while back, and some scraps of corrugated cardboard. I do seem to have a thing for hearts, stars and the stripes corrugated cardboard make at the moment. I love combinations of teal, bright yellow, deep blue and bright green so thought I’d start with those. I got mixed results, partly because initially I didn’t think to mark where the Gelli Plate sat, so my registration was way off. These are not finished – I’ll probably work over the top of these by hand, adding text and more marks, but I think I’m going to love my new way of making prints. Thanks Martha!
Cath Sheard 
Hi Cath, I’ve been trying out printing with gelatin lately too – great fun! Where did you buy your Gelli Plate? Want to buy one, but not quite sure where to get them (especially down here in Dunners :)). Great work by the way 🙂
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Wow, Cath! These are so fresh and fun. You mentioned registration, but I agree with a lot of other artists that having the layers slightly off-register simply adds to the spontaneity and surprise. Love them!
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This is one of Ruth Treon’s pieces. She swirled red paint on the block, then over stamped it with a rose-like printing stamp. She lifted the print off the block. She then took a place mat which had perforations and brayered paint on it, then put it over the top of the printed fabric on the padded print surface and brayered the paint from the place mat onto the pre-gelatin plate printed fabric while it was wet. I think it turned out pretty cool. Gwen did some fun things with my plate and some blue, but I didn’t get a picture which showed it off to it’s best effect. Technically, when you do this, it is called making a mono-print. A mono-print is a painting on a surface which is then transferred to another….in this case fabric. While sometimes you can get a second “pull” from the plate, usually you’ve already transferred all of the paint or ink to the surface you initially transferred it, thus, you only get one print per inking of the plate. Here are some additional websites/blogs with info on gelatin plate printing. Tracy Bunkers Kathleen Garner Leslie Tucker Jenison at the Sketchbook Project blog Where to find unflavored gelatin? Well….it wasn’t easy in my grocery store…when I didn’t see the familiar package of Knox gelatin in the jello/pudding aisle, I asked the store help….they told me to look in the canning aisle (yes, this is Ohio, so we have a section of an aisle devoted to canning)….only that was Pectin, not gelatin….I finally found it on the very bottom of the shelf next to rennet (that’s another story) and it was only the house brand, not Knox. I had been looking for some Kosher or non-animal gelatin for a friend, and I tried Halal stores and an Indian market, and a couple of health food stores, but never found any. Maybe she will have to use just the Gelli Plate!
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