How to Use Gelli Plates: Create Unique Prints with Colour and Texture

How-To Guides

Gelli plate printing, a modern form of monoprinting, emerged in the early 2000s as artists sought a simple, versatile way to create layered prints without the need for traditional presses. This technique allows you to experiment with colours, textures and materials to produce unique designs. Using water-based or oil paints, this guide will show you how to ink up your gelli plate, build textures with stamps and found objects and create striking single or layered prints on paper and card.

Step by step - Let's Create

Prepare your work space. You can use block printing inks or we recommend using Specialist Crafts X4 Acryl Paints. Other water-based paints can be used but dyes will stain the plate so are not recommended. Oil paints can be used and cleaned from the gel printing plate with baby oil and wiped clean with a paper towel.

Ink up your gelli plate by applying the paint to the plate, and blend the colours using a roller. Print a few backgrounds on paper first and leave these to dry. You can use solid colour also. You can place a piece of paper under the gelli plate to make it easier for aligning your print when printing on top of your background

You can make single prints by inking up your gelli plate again, and then using wooden stamps with contrasting ink to build up colour and textures before you print. Add objects such as leaves to add interesting textures and masked off areas.

Create double prints by printing onto your dry backgrounds created in Step 2. Experiment by layering white paint on your gelli plate, then printing with pieces of bubble wrap and lace fabrics to create textures in the ink. TIP: Line up your background with the paper under your gelli plate first!

You can remove parts of the gelli plate which you don’t wish to print ink by using a paint brush to create patterns. Why not also try printing onto black card to really make your prints and colours stand out.

You can also use ready-made stencils, using stencil card, and printing over these to add further detailed areas to your prints. You can create a wide range of prints, cards and postcards with gelli plates, experiment with an array of resources.