Monotyping With The Gelli Arts® Printing Plate by Marsha Valk

Hi there! It’s Marsha here today!

The terms monotype and monoprint are often used interchangeably. However, there is a difference between the two.

When it comes to gel printing, I always like to think of it like this:

Monotypes are a type of monoprints made by painting or drawing directly onto the printing plate in an additive manner with for instance brushes or shapers. Or by inking the entire surface of the printing plate and then, using brushes or rags, removing paint to create a subtractive image.

It’s hard to repeat the same strokes or gestures, so each monotype is unique.

Monoprinting, on the other hand, is the kind of printing that uses permanent features that you can repeat over and over again on additional prints.

Think about it; if you use the same stencil, mask or stamp over and over again, you could print a whole series of similar-looking gel prints with slight variations.

Today I’m going to share how you can create painterly monotypes with the gel printing plate.

There’s one caveat though. I am going to use a permanent feature: a reference image of a 16th-century painting, just to show you how easy and fun it can be to use one of your favourite images, drawings or photos as a guide.

Remember that whatever you paint on the gel printing plate will be printed in reverse, so make sure you paint the mirrored image onto your gel printing plate.

Slow-drying paint is key for creating painterly monotypes. I like using Golden OPEN Acrylics, however you can also use slow-drying printmaking inks or you can increase the open time of your regular paints by adding Golden Open Medium, Open Gel, or Glazing Medium to them.