Gelli Printing with Leaves
Now summer is well and truly under way in New England the trees are filled with juicy leaves. That means gelli plate printing time! In the video below I show you my method for creating leaf prints that I make into handmade books. At the bottom of the post, there are printable directions.
Watch Video
Materials
I use the following materials in my leaf prints:
- Gelli plate (I prefer the 8″ x 10″ size)
- 4″ Rubber brayer
- Palette knife
- Golden Open acrylic paint (3 primary colors plus black and white)
- Drawing paper
- White tissue paper (cheap gift wrapping paper is fine)
- Surface to mix and roll out paint, such as plexiglass
- Cloths to clean up
- Scratch paper
This is the way I create the prints:
Background
- Mix up a light color paint using the palette knife on the plexiglass surface.
- Apply paint to the gelli plate with the brayer.
- Lay down a sheet of paper, lightly rub with hands and pull up print.
- Lay down second sheet of paper for a second or ghost print.
- Use found objects to add texture to the painted gelli plate before pulling the prints, if desired.
- Create about a dozen backgrounds.
Middle Layer
- Mix up a medium toned paint color on the plexiglass surface.
- Apply paint to the gelli plate with the brayer.
- Lay down a pleasing combination of leaves.
- Lay down a dried light background paper, lightly rub with hands and pull up the negative print.
- Remove the leaves, lay down a second light background paper and pull up the positive print.
- Repeat with all your background sheets.
- Once dried, print negative prints on top of the positive prints and vice versa.
Final Layer
- Apply a dark paint to the gelli plate and add your focal leaf.
- Lay down white tissue paper and remove the excess dark paint.
- Leaving the leaf in place, lay down a second piece of tissue paper and remove the rest of the paint, carefully pressing around the leaf.
- Remove the leaf and print this final leaf onto the pages created above.
Printable Directions
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or reach out to me on Facebook.
