Hi everyone im new here. I got a geli plate yesterday, is there anything i need to do to the plate before i begin using it? Because im struggling to get a print off. I placed a template over the plate and made sure it was well pressed down and did the relevent painting in acrylic, next i removed the template and followed it with a layer of black once the first layered had dried. I waited for the black to be seni dried and placed my paper on left it for a few hours before lifting the print however the paoef was still damp so it lifted a little bit of the print but then just tore…any ideas please??? I think maybe i should have let the black over oat dry more maybe??
Don’t let the second layer dry at all before placing your paper down. Here’s the steps I follow
put down base paint on plate and brayer out
do anything to the paint you’d like to do (stenciling, scraping off paint, stamping, etc)
after that layer is dry, brayer on second layer of paint
place down paper onto the plate while the paint is still wet (I usually do immediately)
rub your hand over the print to essentially burnish it onto the paper
basically immediately after that, try doing a test pull by lifting a corner to see if the paint is coming up
if the paint isn’t coming up, put the corner back down and burnish some more
I hardly ever need to wait more than 30 or so seconds after placing the paper down to pull the print. You can also pull the print immediately after step 2, you don’t have to add another layer of paint unless the first layer is dry and/or you want to have a different color as the base and not the color of the paper.
There are tons of great videos on YouTube that go over gelli printing. Have fun!
I’m relatively new to gelli printing myself, but I’ve heard it’s a good idea to “warm up” the plate by pulling several single color prints. I’ve also struggled getting good early prints, but this process seems to have helped me.
Also, just to be absolutely clear, I’m using warm up figuratively here; I don’t recommend heating up the plate.
I think so. Like athletes warming up before a game, maybe. I don’t really know the full logic/science of it; it’s probably whatever law of the universe makes the first crepe come out weird. But generally my prints have seemed to come more easily after I’ve pulled a few. I’ll see whether I can find the video I picked that up from.
I can’t remember the exact video, but I’m pretty sure it was 49dragonflies and she was working from Robyn McClendon’s book Gel Plate Printing for Mixed-Media Art: Taking Your Visual Storytelling to a New Level. So as far as I’m aware of it, the warm up idea goes back to Robyn McClendon.