Gelli Arts® Printing Faux Chine Collé

Chine collé is a printmaking technique where lightweight paper is adhered to heavier paper as it’s passed through a press with an inked plate. The result is a print on a collage. Watch this video to see how this process can be adapted for Gel printing!

If you’d like to print on fragile vintage papers, brittle book pages, or thin, delicate papers that may tear — this is your technique! 

Here’s the basic process:

1. Prepare a collage of your lightweight paper by adhering thin papers to a piece of heavy paper with matte medium, PVA, or your favorite paper adhesive. When the collage is dry, you’re ready for printing.

2. Roll paint into a thin layer onto the Gelli® plate with a brayer, then add textures and marks in the wet paint.

3. Place your collaged paper onto the gel plate, rub to transfer the paint, and pull your print.

Tips:

• The papers need to have a good bond, so glue stick is not recommended as it doesn’t always hold. 

• Smooth paper, such as bristol, hot press watercolor paper and mixed media sketchbook 

pages will all do a great job here. Printmaking papers, such a Stonehenge or Rives BFK, are excellent choices.

• Masks and stencils are particularly effective, as they create a barrier between the paint and paper, preserving areas of the collage from being covered with paint. Ghost prints pulled on collaged paper can make beautiful prints.

• Use transparent paints where you want the collaged papers to show through.

• Opaque paints can be used to block out areas of the collaged paper, giving the print a very different look.

• You can print multiple layers and build up colors and complexity in your print. 

Try this:

For great results, try this process using stencils and two (or more) colors of slow-drying paint. The objective is to print the ghost image on the collage paper:

1. Roll a thin layer of slow-drying paint onto the gel plate with a brayer. 

2. Cover the plate with a stencil. 

3. Cover with thin paper, such as deli paper or copy paper. Press into the holes and pull the print. 

4. With the stencil still in place on the gel plate, roll a contrasting color of slow-drying acrylic paint over the stencil with a brayer. 

5. Again, cover with thin paper, such as copy paper or deli paper. Press lightly and pull the print. 

6. Remove the stencil. 

7. Place your collaged paper on the plate, rub and pull the print. This is a chine collé print!

Experiment with layers of paint and stencils and see the different and interesting results you can achieve when printing on collaged paper! So much fun!!

For more examples, please take a look at this older blog post: “Something Borrowed”, and 

check out the slideshow video of faux chine collé prints. There’s no tutorial there, just prints. And hopefully, a little inspiration!!

FYI: Materials used in this video:

• Golden Soft Gel Medium (Matte)

• Golden OPEN Acrylic Paints

• Stonehenge Paper

• Colour Shaper tool (for applying gel medium)

• Stencils and Masks ( The Crafter’s Workshop, Stencil Girl, Green Pepper Press, Tim Holtz). The ‘bee’ mask was cut from Graphix Edge Stencil Film on a Silhouette Cameo — from a clip art design)

• Vintage book text, newspaper, maps, sheet music

• Various ‘found’ textures 

This Contest is officially CLOSED

This months Gelli Arts® blog giveaway winner (random number generator 179) is Anne Siciliano! I felt like I was the winner when I found her facebook page…. gorgeous artwork! Congrats to Anne and we hope she shares her good fortune with us by sharing her Gelli® artwork!

 And now for our fabulous giveaway – a kit with materials especially selected for experimenting with this technique!

The fabulous giveaway includes:

• 1 – 8″x10″ Gelli Arts® Gel Printing Plate
• 1 – Speedball 4″ soft rubber Pop-in Brayer
• 1 – 4 oz. jar of Golden OPEN Acrylic paint – Quinacridone/ Nickel Azo Gold
• 1 – 4 oz. jar of Golden OPEN Acrylic paint – Quinacridone Magenta
• 1 – 4 oz. jar of Golden OPEN Acrylic paint – Ultramarine Blue
• 1 – 8 oz. jar of Golden Soft Gel Medium (matte)
• 1 – Stonehenge Pad – 9”x12” – 15 sheets – 100% Cotton – 250 GSM

To enter to win, all you need to do is leave a comment here on the blog. Comments will be accepted until Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014 at 12noon EST. One lucky winner will be selected at random on April 22nd and announced here on the blog and on our Facebook page no later than April 22nd at 5 pm EST. 

Good Luck and Happy Printing!

This Contest is officially CLOSED