Gelli Arts® Printing with “Glaze Paints”

Hello there and
welcome to the Gelli® Arts blog!

Birgit here with a new
video and step-by-step.

Today I am going to
show you how to create your own “glaze paints” and how to use them on the
Gelli® plate.

These paints are very
translucent, yet very vibrant, which gives you the possibility to create multi
layered prints in beautiful bright colors. I really love how I can see all the
previous layers shine through the layers on top!

To create these “glaze
paints” you need a matte gel medium, Brushos (but another brand watercolor
powders/ink stains like Color Burst will probably give the same effect), water,
spoons, a cup to mix and empty paint tubes or little pots.

For 20ml tubes take 2
full coffee spoons of matte gel medium, add half a teaspoon of Brusho and
about 2-4ml water.

It’s better to have a
little bit too much water than not enough as the powders change the consistency
of the gel medium and it might get too thick after you added it to the tubes
and you won’t be able to use them anymore. I had that happen with a few of my
colors.

Mix well. The gel medium
has to be very smooth and the powder has to be dissolved completely.

Fill the tubes or pots
with the paints and mark them with the name of the color.

Take some sheets of
cheap printer paper and cut some easy and simple but fun stencils, like
circles, triangles and diamonds.

Use a brayer to apply
a thin layer of paint to the Gelli® plate. It will look very transparent and
you might think there is not enough paint on there but you will be surprised by
the brightness of the colors. 

Lay a stencil on top
of the paint and pull your first print.

Then apply a new color
to the plate, lay a stencil on top and pull a second print on top of the first
print. Continue this way with different stencils and colors until you have
multiple overlapping layers of colors and shapes.

Dry your print and the
used stencils well with a heat gun, then use a repositionable adhesive to apply
a stencil in the right position to the print.

Apply paint to the
plate and use texture tools, like Art Printing plates to
remove paint and create texture. Place the print with the stencil adhered to it
on top of the paint and pull the print.

If you feel you need
more layers after that you can just continue adding colors and shapes until you
are satisfied.

When you are done,
don’t throw away your painty stencils! They are perfect collage material.

In the next pictures
you can see how I used pieces of the colorful stencils and applied them on top
of my print.

And here are some
samples where you can see how I used the prints as backgrounds in my art
journal. The paints are 95% permanent when dry. Some colors may react a little
bit when adding water or paint with a brush. But I found that I could perfectly
work on them and did things like doodling, painting, stamping and coloring.

I hope you enjoyed
this tutorial! Happy printing!!

Birgit

List of Materials

5×7 Gelli® Plate

Roller

Matte Gel Medium

Brusho (watercolor powders)

Water

Spoons

Cup to mix

Empty paint tubes or little pots

Crimpers

Copy paper

Scissors

Stencils

Stamps for textures