July 29, 2020

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.