Gel Printing With Dylusions Paint

 

Short post today walking you through the above print. A one-time kind of print. It's called monoprinting and it is called that because you can never exactly replicate this piece of art. I began with three main supplies: a gel printing plate from Gelli Arts, Hand Lettering paper from Hahnemühle and Dylusions Paint. Let me show you what I did.

I began with the 5" x 7" gel printing plate and  the London Blue color in the Dylusions paint line. Using my 2" wide brayer, I rolled out a layer of color then placed this stencil from Joggles on top. I placed a piece of Hand Lettering paper cut to the same dimension on top of the stencil and pressed down all over, making a lift which you will see in a minute. What that does is remove the color inside the openings of the stencil - leaving all that pretty blue underneath the stencil itself. Then I removed the stencil and sat it aside. This is what I had left on my plate. 

Without doing anything to the blue paint, I rolled out a thin layer of Tropical Sangria on top. That is the vibrant pink color. In places the color mixed and that is alright, the thought is to gently roll out that top layer of color so you don't ruin the design left behind by the stencil underneath. 

I could tell I had too much paint on my plate, so I placed a sheet of the Hand Lettering paper on top and smoothed it down with my hand. Then lifted away some of the color. I liked what I had going on here, but there was still too much blue.

I placed the same stencil back down on top of the blue and pink color on the plate and rolled on a layer of lemon zest, right through the stencil openings. 

I took the paper you see two photos up and placed it down right on top of the stencil and lifted the yellow away and now my print is no longer too dark. And I love this! It is going to make a great background for some Zetti art! I liked this so much that I rolled out another layer of lemon zest through the stencil and  . . .

. . . took my initial print that had blue on it and made a lift of yellow. You can see where the blue and yellow mixed in some areas to make green. And there are faint traces of pink in other areas. Another cool background. These prints are mostly dry when you pull them off the plate, but let me show them both to you once they dried completely and flattened out. 

One of my favorite prints from that day. Blue, pink, yellow and traces of green and purple, even a hint of orange. And it was so easy to do!

Last one. The only paint colors I used are London Blue and Lemon Zest. The other colors you see are where these two combined, and there are bits and hints of other lifts with other colors shining through. Monoprinting is so much fun! I had no idea how this Hand Lettering paper would work. I had high hopes for it and I was greatly pleased. It makes a nice smooth lift that will be easy to tangle on. The paper is lightweight and perfect for gel printing! I can see me doing a lot more of this!

Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plates can be purchased here. 

Hahnemühle's Hand Lettering paper can be purchased here. 

Dylusions Paints can be purchased here.