Nights are when I do most of my creating. The kiddo goes to bed, I finish my household chores, and then I have an hour or two before going to bed to work on something. For the last several years I was so exhausted that when I got home from work all I really wanted to do was eat supper, vegetate in front of the tv, and then go to bed. It’s been nice since the job change to have some energy at night to want to be creative. We do have an office/studio and my older laptop, printer, and scanner are in there but more often than not I find myself cleaning off the island in the kitchen and working there while listening to a youtube video or music on my iPad. Why the kitchen? It has the best overhead light after dark. It might be fluorescent but it’s bright and the island is the perfect height so I’m not all hunched over trying to work. This is where I normally cut out sewing patterns, hand sew, etc. The other night I took a little time and played around with something I’ve seen floating around the internet the last few years, gelli plate printing. 

I got interested in monoprinting a few years ago after starting to follow an artist that lives in Ukraine on Instagram. Her name is Margo Sarkisova and her handle on instagram is @margopersimmon. Specifically, there are monoprints and monotypes with the distinction between the two being very slight. From what I understand a monoprint is part of a series with recurring elements in each of the prints of a series and a monotype is a single unique piece of artwork. (Please feel free to correct me.) Trying to understand the differences between the two is what led me down the alternative printmaking rabbit hole where I started learning about other processes including gelli printing.  I watched a few YouTube videos with artists demonstrating how to use them, but after checking prices for the commercially made gelli plates I was put off the whole thing and never went any further. I mean it looked cool and all but I just wasn’t willing to drop over $20 on something I had never seen used in person and wasn’t even sure I would enjoy creating with. Then one day I stumbled across a Pinterest article that showed step-by-step how to make your own gelli plate at home for a fraction of the price of what a store bought one would cost. The plates are literally a mixture of water, glycerin, and clear, unflavored, powdered gelatin.  Turns out the gelli plate has been around for over 100 years and is not a new invention at all. Previously it was called a hectograph, gelatin duplicator, or a jelly graph and was invented sometime in the late 1800s. Originally aniline inks or pencils were used on a piece of paper which was then pressed into the jello-like plate, and this allowed you to produce 20 to 40 copies from that initial impression. This simple copy process was used prior to the mimeograph by churches or small groups to make copies when you only needed a handful of copies as it was extremely cheap and easy to use. 

Gelli Arts have been selling their polymer Gelli plates since 2011 but artists seem to have been using these to create art since prior to WWII. There are Pinterest articles galore about gelli plates and recipes to create your own so that’s what I did.  I didn’t want to waste my money on a trendy art gadget to then not love it.  I thought I’ll make my own to begin with, and go from there. I only needed two ingredients and a container to put it in so why not? I’ve made more difficult cooking recipes. Late one night last week I pulled out some cheap acrylic paint, a printing brayer that hasn’t seen the light of day since about 2002, a sheet of plexiglass to mix on, and a few sheets of multimedia paper and decided to have some fun. With no idea of what I was doing aside from a few YouTube tutorials, and no plan I started laying down paint and playing around. After about an hour I had 5 decent first time prints from my homemade gelatin plate and I absolutely loved the color blends and textures I was able to create. Each one is completely different and unique in its own way. 

I have some more ideas for my geliplates and can’t wait to play some more with them. Let me know what you think and I’d love to hear if you have ever worked with monoprints. This is just one of many, many, MANY ways to make monoprints. I have a few more that I would like to try as well. That’s all for now my lovelies!