Gelli Arts® Combed Prints & Watercolor!

Joan Bess / Kids Stuff, Layered Prints (colorful backgrounds), Mediums – Alcohol Inks, Pastels, Watercolors, Stencils, Patterns & Textures / 67 Comments

Playing with the NEW Gelli® Printing Tools is like taking a shortcut to finding your printmaking mojo! This video shows a painterly approach to a combed print — then takes it to the next level by adding watercolors! Take a look!

The mark-making potential of these great BIG Gelli® combs casts an addictive spell! Count on losing yourself in hours of play as you discover how compelling it is to create different and dynamic combed patterns. You know the feeling…”just one more” — right?!!”

You’ll find ideas, tips and techniques for using these new combs on the blog post, “Awesome NEW Gelli® Printing Tools!!!” from August 20, 2015.

If you’ve ever dragged or swiped a comb across a painted gel plate, you know it’s a wonderful subtractive process that removes paint to create your image.

This video demonstration is on an 8″x10″ plate. But the Gelli® combs are great for designing patterns on ALL of the Gelli® plate sizes—large, small and round. It’s amazing how many effects you can create!

Here’s something to try! Instead of applying paint directly to the plate and rolling with a brayer, use a paintbrush to cover the plate with quick, loose brushstrokes — blending colors as you go! It’s so easy to create an artful painted layer — and perfect for swiping your combs through!

TIPS:

When brushing paint onto the gel plate, a thin layer will show the beauty of your brushstrokes.
Avoid laying down thick areas of paint, as they’ll squish and print as blobs.
Use analogous colors (next to each other on the color wheel) to avoid making mud. A color wheel is great to have on hand — and helpful for making color selections.
Work quickly so you can comb smoothly through the wet paint.

The paint used in the video is DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics. This line of fluid acrylic paint is wonderful for creating combed patterns—and like any acrylic paint, will act as a resist to watercolor, producing impressive results. That’s the technique we’re exploring here!

Creating beautiful delicate colors is easily achieved by adding Media Tinting Base to any of the Media paints. And it adds body to the fluid paints. Have fun mixing your own colors and printing with soft hues.

But we’re not stopping there! After the Gelli® prints are dry—make your prints sing by adding watercolors!

With this in mind, it’s best to print on a paper that can handle that extra process. These prints are pulled on Fabriano Artistico Hot Press 140lb. watercolor paper. In case you’re not familiar with the term—hot press paper has a very smooth surface (cold press has texture).

Rather than using traditional watercolors (although they work beautifully)—I’m experimenting with some incredible pigment powders from Lindy’s Stamp Gang, called ‘Magicals‘. They’re named so perfectly—these pigments contain mica, so they sparkle and shine! For watercolor effects, simply add water and mix the desired intensity of each color. The pale powders morph into rich, metallic colors when water is added. Magic! And perfect for adding pizzazz to a print!

Work wet-in-wet—letting the pigments run together into spontaneous color reactions. As the colors mingle, it’s like watching a mystical transformation fill the blank spaces on your print!

Acrylic paint will resist the watercolors. If needed—to clean up watercolor from any printed areas—it’s easy to wipe it off the acrylic paint with a damp cotton swab. So your original printed image stands out.

Something to keep in mind: For this technique, the comb should remove most of the paint off the plate where you swipe it. That’s what creates the unpainted areas on your print for adding watercolors. So it helps to start with a clean Gelli® plate. If there is dried paint on your plate, you may want to clean it first.

You’ll quickly discover when you start creating combed prints with the 7″ Gelli® combs — it’s hard to stop!! The process is fast and fun!

So make a bunch of combed prints and add watercolor! It’s a quick and simple way to make each print extra-special!

Combed prints are so easy to embellish — the lines to guide you are already there!!!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

And now for our FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY!!!

A fabulous kit for creating your own combed and watercolor prints!

One lucky winner will receive our prize kit including:

1 – 8″x10″ Gelli Arts® Gel Printing Plate
1 – Set of Gelli® Printing Tools – 3 Round Edge Combs
1 – Set of Gelli® Printing Tools – 3 Square Edge Combs
1 – Lindy’s Stamp Gang ‘Magicals’ Set- 5 colors (Tres Chic)
6 – DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic Paint – 1 oz. bottles
1 – DecoArt Media Tinting Base (White) – 4 oz. jar
1 – Catalyst™ by Princeton – Polytip™ Bristle – Bright – Size 10
1 – Princeton Brush Co. – Round Watercolor Brush 4050R Size 8
1 – Pocket Color Wheel (The Color Wheel Company)

To enter the giveaway, click on the red “ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE” button below! (This will ensure that we can contact the winner and that entries are limited to one per person. One winner will be selected from all the entries via a random number generator to receive this very special giveaway!) Entries will be accepted until 12pm noon on Tuesday, September 29th EDT. Our lucky winner will be contacted by email and announced here on the blog and on our Facebook page no later than 5pm on Tuesday September 29th!