Gelli plate fun!

Hi everyone! Hope you are managing to create some art in between work and family commitments. The joy of being retired is that I can create art every day. And today was no exception! My lovely craft buddy, Linda Regan, and I had a lovely long session playing around with some of Birgit Koopsen's techniques with the large Gelli plate. Our 'Play day' was inspired by Birgit's very short video showing how to use spray inks on the Gelli plate together with different mediums. Therefore, my photos and explanations here are far better promoted Here by Birgit herself. I really urge you to go and see the wonderful backgrounds she achieves with these techniques.

We used Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions spray inks, adding some Tattered Angels to add a bit of sparkle to some of the backgrounds. Our first attempt, like Birgit's, was just spraying a couple of the inks onto the gelliplate, placing a stencil on top of the ink then taking a print. We experimented a little deciding which paper/card was best to use, but both felt that Clarity Gelli card gave us the best results today. Having said that, we didn't use a wide selection so the jury is still out on that one! This first technique gave us mixed results. Linda's worked better than mine but although my first print was rather puddly I was really pleased with the rest that I pulled off. Using inks offers more prints than acrylic paint which dries very quickly unless you use 'open' paints or an extender. The photo above shows how many I was able to pull off before removing the stencil and after! That leaf stencil is from 'StencilGirl'.

From left to right is the order in which I pulled the prints. The first and second from the left is before removing the stencil. The third and fourth from the left were pulled after removing the stencil. Not bad for inks! However, the colours did blur together and the stencil design was not as clearly defined as it would be with paints. This is where Birgit now adds different mediums. Rifling through my stash, I decided to try smearing a thin layer of Golden's 3D gloss gel across the Gelli plate before laying the stencil on top. Birgit uses gel medium but I wanted to see the effect of a 'gloss' gel on the inks. 

Even with the gloss gel primary layer, my first pull still puddled a little. The final pull, after removing the stencil was the only print to offer an interesting texture along the stencil lines. I think my gel layer was too thin because when Linda tried it, she smeared quite a thick layer of gloss gel on the gelli plate and each of her pulls were fantastic.  Each print contained the most wonderful textured patterns. Delicious. Again, from left to right is the order I pulled the prints.

This was my second attemp, smearing a thicker layer of the 3D Gloss Gel across the gelliplate before laying down a different StencilGirl stencil. This was definitely more successful and created some beautiful textured patterns across the colours, particularly where the inks blended. The gloss gel also helped add vibrancy to the colours. 

 

Our final technique, although Birgit uses a couple more on her video, was to smear white gesso across the gelli plate before laying a stencil across. This time, I was much more generous with the amount I used. The results differed from the gloss gel in that it produced a more 'pastel' result that was almost blurry. Again, the order of pulls is shown from left to right. The third and fourth from the left were pulled after removing the stencil (Crafters Workshop this time) and left a creamy, milk-White background behind the circles. Gorgeous. 

So there we are folks! If my samples haven't encouraged or inspired you to have a go with different mediums on your Gelli plate, then watch Birgit's video as I'm sure she will inspire you. Not sure what I'm going to do with these yet, but I do have another couple of techniques to try before I'm done. I wonder how 'crackle paint' will cope with the inks? Off to try that out now! Have a good week folks and make time for some arty fun. Until next time! 

I would love to know your thoughts!