Gelli Arts® Printing with Flexible Texture Plates

Printing with Flexible Texture Plates on Gelli Arts® Gel Printing Plates

by Birgit Koopsen

Hello and welcome to the Gelli Arts® blog! It’s Birgit
here and I am going to show you how you can easily create flexible texture
plates for printing on Gelli Arts® gel printing plates.  Flexible texture plates have several   benefits compared to texture plates created on
cardboard or wood or using just the foam.

Let’s start with the supplies you need: self-adhesive
craft foam, acetate sheets, a pen or pencil, scissors and an embossing tool or
skewer.

I used the 8”x10” Gelli Arts® gel printing plate and
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics to create my prints.

Start with drawing shapes on the back of the foam
sheets and cut them out.

 

Use the embossing tool or skewer to add texture to the
craft foam shapes.

Apply a piece of craft foam to an acetate sheet that
is just a little bit bigger than the craft foam. About 1cm/0.4” bigger on all
sides.

Create a nice composition with the foam shapes.

To create the triangles, I first added texture to a
whole sheet of craft foam, then cut strips and then cut triangles from the
strips. No need to draw the triangles on the back unless you want them all to
be the exact same size.

You can make the plates any size or shape you want as
long as you always make sure to have to acetate sheet a little bit bigger than
the foam.

Benefit no. 1:

Applying the foam to an acetate sheet will keep the plates
flat, the edges will not curl and the plates are easier to handle and store.

Benefit no. 2:

Because the acetate is a little bit bigger than the
foam it is easier to remove the texture plate from the Gelli Arts® printing
plate without touching the paint and ruining your print.

(After making a print you can use the left-over paint
on the texture plates to stamp)

Benefit no. 3:

The acetate sheets are flexible which gives you the
possibility to only use a part of the plate. You would not be able to do this
when using cardboard or wood as a base for your texture plates.

And now you are ready to play!

Supplies

Self-adhesive backed craft foam

Acetate sheets

Embossing tool or skewer

Scissors

Pen or Pencil

Gelli Arts® gel printing plate – 8×10 used in this blog

Media Fluid Acrylic Paint from DecoArt

Thank you for stopping by! Happy Printing!

Birgit Koopsen

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