Tangling Gelli Prints

Recently I've been working with my gel printing plate having a blast! Gelli Arts teamed up with Hahnemühle making the perfect team for artists like me - I get the best of both worlds! Let me show you how I used products from both Gelli Arts and Hahnemühle to make this tangled gelli print. 

Working with my 5" x 7" gel printing plate - also known as a gelli plate - I rolled out a layer of Calypso Teal Dylusions acrylic paint. Just a couple drops of color is all it takes, then use a brayer to roll the color all across the plate. I had this new stencil that I just placed on top. 

For paper I used a 5" x 7" piece of Bristol Illustration paper from Hahnemühle. It's easy. You just place the paper on top of the stencil and smoosh it down all over with your hand, palm and fingertips. Once you've done that just lift the paper away from the plate and turn it over. Sorry I didn't think to take a photo before I started tangling. You will notice bits of pink and yellow here and there in the print. Those are remnant colors from the print I made before this one. I love the way those colors linger and come to life in future prints. Bristol paper is super smooth and this particular paint just absorbed into the paper making tangling easy as can be. I used a Tombow mono drawing pen and started adding printemps into the blue sections of color. 

Once I had enough of those printemped :) I started making enclosed areas. Look at this section. Do you see how I used tipple - small circles - to connect some of the blue areas together? I did that until I had a completely enclosed area. 

In the middle of the enclosed area I added the tangle Arukas. And it worked so well I did another. 

And I liked it. I began creating other enclosed spaces and adding Arukas in those. 

Here is what my print looked like once I had added all the printemps, tipple and Arukas I wanted to. I love it. 

But it didn't look finished. I used  two Schmincke watercolor . . . colors . . . and added some oomph to the Arukas and then it was done. Easy to do, quick and fun! A tangled gel print and it is ready to add into a journal. 

Gelli Arts gel printing plates can be purchased here. 

Bristol Illustration paper from Hahnemühle can be purchased here.