Playing with Gelli Plates

The past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with gelli plates, acrylic paints and pan pastels. When I first started, I was just rolling out the color with a brayer and pulling the prints. But then I started to play with layering stencils and acrylic paints. First it was stencils I bought and then stencils I made from cardstock.

When I learned that pan pastels work well on the gelli plate, I started rubbing the soft chalky pastel through stencils, rolling on acrylic gesso or matte medium, and then pulling those prints. Here’s a video that shows you how to use the pan pastels with the gelli plate.

After a while, I started using paintbrushes to paint patterns directly on to the plate and pulling those.

Once I made the prints, I’d look at them to see what more they wanted. Many times, the prints have become colorful, intricate multi-dimensional backgrounds, although I’m also exploring creating prints that are final art. The possibilities are endless.