Friday 26 October 2012

Homemade Gelatin Printing Plates

I recently read about using Gelli Arts Printing Plates for printmaking, but I have not found them here in Canada.  I did however find this recipe to make your own gelatin printing plates.


Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates

Materials

a pan to use as a mold for the gelatin-I used a pyrex dish
4 packages of unflavoured gelatin
plastic wrap
1 cup of hot water
1 cup of cold water
a spoon to stir
a bowl to mix the gelatin and water





Cover the bottom of the pan with plastic wrap, letting it hang over all the sides to act as handles when you lift the gelatin plate out of the mold.

Mix the cold water with the 4 packages of gelatin until it is dissolved. Add the hot water, stir and then pour into the plastic wrap-lined mold.

Make sure to get rid of any bubbles-I moved them to the edge of the gelatin.
Put the gelatin into the refrigerator to set.   I left mine in the fridge overnight.

When the gelatin has set remove it from the mold along with the plastic wrap.


My gelatin plate lifted out of the pan very easily.  I wanted to create smaller plates for each student so I cut the gelatin into 3 and peeled it off of the plastic wrap. 

This actually didn't work very well, since one of the three plates completely broke and another one lost a huge chunk.  In the future I would use several small pans for molds.







Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates
To create my prints I used a sponge brush to apply an even layer of acrylic paint over the entire plate.

















For my first prints I decided to try using scraps of leftover construction paper.

Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing platesArt Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates


The resulting prints:

Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates

Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates



These were okay, but a bit fuzzy so I decided to replace the construction paper with computer paper.



Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates
The construction paper is on the left and the computer paper is on the right.  I found that the  computer paper created sharper lines.


You can also draw right into the paint on the gelatin plate to create an image.  I used the end of the sponge brush to create the dot pattern and then overlaid computer paper stars to create this print.

Art Intertwine-homemade gelatin printing plates


3 comments:

  1. Thumbs up for your creative skills..red is making it more adorable....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perfect use of red that makes it more adorable...will you share something related to plastic cards printing with us...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I plan to use your recipe. It seems the Gelli Plate that one purchases is a little expensive if I can make one. At least I will try.

    ReplyDelete

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