Gelli Plate Printing

I finally got my "Gelli" plate in the mail! yea! I was really looking forward to it. I ordered from GelliArts.com their videos were very helpful to get me started. I got out my paints, tools, and some white fabric I had cut into strips to treat with the Bubble Jet Set. Charlie took a nap, so I was all set to work in peace. I rolled paint on with a hard rubber brayer, then used a comb to drag wavy lines through, and laid the fabric on top to print. I used several different tools to imprint into the paint, rug grid, foam stamps, napkin ring for circles, several different combs, and other found objects to design on the wet paint. After the first round, I decided I needed some masks to add another layer, and still show the color of the first layer. I had collected some oak leaves yesterday, with this in mind, I also cut circles out of freezer paper. I tried to decide if it was better to go light to dark, or dark to light, with the paint layers. Either worked well, but a light 2nd layer needs to be opaque enough to show up on top of a dark undercoat. The second layer NEEDS some empty space for the first layer to show through. I kept adding layers, especially to the pieces I did not like, extra layers helped a lot, to add depth and complexity. I didn't like the mat finish of the cheap acrylic paints, so I tried the Versatex fabric paints that I have, a good yellow helped brighten up a few of the pieces, but I probably should have thinned it down with some fabric medium anyway. I will try fabric medium with all the paints next time, to see if I can get the colors to be more transparent. A lot of paint built up on some of the pieces with 3 to 4 layers of paint, and they are pretty stiff. I finished some with metallic silver and gold acrylic paint, either stamping directly on the fabric, or stamping on the Gelli plate, then laying the fabric on top of that. I decided to try a few pieces with wet fabric, to get the colors to bleed a little and soak into the fabric, and not be so mat finished. I wet 3 pieces and added color to them, then laid them out to dry a little. I used a foam stamp into the next layer of paint, and printed the stamp onto a 2nd piece of fabric too. They came out very nice, in several variations, I kept darkening the green paint on the leaf print. I also made several "Ghost" prints, a second printing from the paint left on the Gelli plate, after I removed the oak leaves I had used as a mask. I will definitely be doing more of this!! Come on Peggy more play time!