Fun with Gelli Plate Prints: Easy mixed-media printmaking

by Ickler, Sabine, Klink, Katrin

Overview

Discover the colorful world of gelli plate printing and create unique designs using this super-simple technique!

Use your prints to transform a range of items into bespoke pieces of art - from bags, bunting and lampshades, to wall art and even furniture.

The beauty of gelli plate printing is its simplicity - it's easy to get started, quick to clean up after use, and suitable for painting enthusiasts of all ages and abilities.

Using a gelli plate as a base - readily available to buy, or made from gelatine using the recipe in the book - Katrin Klink and Sabine Ickler show you how to create your own striking monoprinted designs. Use your chosen paint to dab, stamp or stencil your designs, and make use of everyday household items, such as kitchen utensils or vegetables, as well as store-bought stamps, to create an infinite number of patterns and textures with minimal equipment and maximum impact.

You can print your designs onto a variety of surfaces or objects, including paper, fabrics, metal and wood - even onto curved and uneven surfaces - giving you enormous scope to create your own collection of vibrant designs, perfect to decorate or use in your home, or to give as wonderful personalized gifts.

Inside this practical, colorful book you will find:

• A guide to all the tools and materials you need clearly explained.
• A broad range of techniques, with full, beginner-friendly guidance.
• An explanation of color theory to put into practice within your own designs.
• 19 achievable projects, together with many more inspirational variations and customizable ideas for creating your own uniquely printed pieces.
• Colorful photos to inspire your gelli plate printing journey!

Search Press Ltd recognises the following trademark in their publication Fun with Gelli Plate Prints:
The trademark Gelli® in North America and trademark Gelli Arts® around the world is the property of Gelli Arts LLC, 525 S. 4th Street Suite 246, Philadelphia, PA 19147, www.GelliArts.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800923218
Publisher:	Search Press
Publication date:	04/22/2025
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Katrin Klink is an illustrator and graphic designer, and loves everything to do with patterns. She became passionate about printing during her studies at the Academy of Art in Stuttgart, Germany. She's been a big fan of gelli printing since her first attempts, for both the experimental approach and the opportunity to develop pattern designs, as well as making very specific projects. Katrin loves the effective results gelli print plates create, all with ease and minimal equipment.

Sabine Ickler loves creating new things and expressing her feelings for colors and shapes in her work. She is a graphic designer and mixed-media artist. Inspired by large, bright patterns from the seventies during her childhood, she now uses those bold colors – as vintage patterns or interpreted in a modern way – for projects such as covers for sketchbooks or travel diaries. Sabine enjoys how gelli printing offers the exciting opportunity to quickly and easily print her own patterns on paper, fabric and even on suitcases or furniture.

Table of Contents

Foreword 6
1. Materials, paints & techniques
Materials; The Gelli Plate 12; Paints 14; Paper and Fabric 16; Tools 18; Stamps 20
COLOURS; Understanding and Mixing Colours – The Colour Palette 24; The Colour Wheel 25; Colour Gradations 26; Saturation 27; Complementary Colours 28; Colours Around Us 29; Developing Your Own Colour Combinations 30
PRINTING; Printing with Simple Household Objects 34; Printing Simple Shapes 36; Multicolour Printing 38; Ghost Prints 40
STENCILS & STAMPS; The Grunge Effect 44; Potato Printing 48; Sketchbook with Potato Printing 50; Fabric Collection and Yellow Bag 52; Foam Rubber Stamps 54; Eraser Stamps 56; Japanese Fabric Bags 58
RESIST PRINTING; Wax Resist Technique 62; Motif Printing with Magazines 64
WATERCOLOURS; Using Watercolours  72
FREESTYLE; Printing Freestyle Patterns  76; Combining with Other Materials  78; Printing on Tissue Paper  79; Printing Large Surfaces or Joins  80; Printing Aprons  82; Printing Mandalas  84
2. From Print to Design; A Whole New World of Gelli Printing  90
3. Projects; Mini Book  96
Travel Bags  98; Gardening Gloves 104; Japanese Pouch 105; Cans, Boxes, and Bowls 106; Covering Objects with Tyvek® 108; Art Wall 110; Geometric Shapes 112; 3D Geometric Shapes 114; Lampshades 116; Covering with Printed Tissue Paper 117; Shopping Bag 120; Bunting 121; Zipped Bag 122; Collage of Various Prints 124; Kimono 126; Lunch Bag 128; Bag with Rings 130; Oven Gloves 131
APPENDIX; Stencils 134; About the authors 143

Editorial Reviews

03/03/2025

Ickler and Klink debut with a wonderful introduction to gelli printing, which in its simplest form involves pressing paper or fabric onto a gelatin plate covered in wet acrylic paint. The authors outline many variations on the process, suggesting that readers might create texture by marking up the painted plate with tools or utensils, or that they might place seedheads on the gelli before printing to make silhouettes of the plants. The magazine resist technique is particularly impressive and entails pressing a glossy page onto a painted plate, which retains the image, and then printing the result. Other strategies include using stamps to absorb paint on gelli plates, which produces a relief of the stamp’s image on the final print, and generating a “grunge effect” by placing stenciled letters on a painted plate and then covering them with another color before printing, leaving behind hazy impressions of the letters. The bounty of techniques showcases the medium’s many possibilities, though the projects offer more inspiration than guidance. For instance, the authors show how they used cutout block letters to adorn the word “bag” onto fabric, but give only a rudimentary description of how they transformed that fabric into a drawstring backpack. Still, this will get crafters’ creative juices flowing. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly
Ickler and Klink debut with a wonderful introduction to gelli printing, which in its simplest form involves pressing paper or fabric onto a gelatin plate covered in wet acrylic paint. The authors outline many variations on the process, suggesting that readers might create texture by marking up the painted plate with tools or utensils, or that they might place seedheads on the gelli before printing to make silhouettes of the plants. The magazine resist technique is particularly impressive and entails pressing a glossy page onto a painted plate, which retains the image, and then printing the result. Other strategies include using stamps to absorb paint on gelli plates, which produces a relief of the stamp’s image on the final print, and generating a “grunge effect” by placing stenciled letters on a painted plate and then covering them with another color before printing, leaving behind hazy impressions of the letters. The bounty of techniques showcases the medium’s many possibilities, though the projects offer more inspiration than guidance. For instance, the authors show how they used cutout block letters to adorn the word “bag” onto fabric, but give only a rudimentary description of how they transformed that fabric into a drawstring backpack. Still, this will get crafters’ creative juices flowing. (Apr.)

From the Publisher