First Gelatin Prints

Hello out there! I have not abandoned my blog. Life just took over for a while. :)

I haven't done much creatively in a few weeks, but a few days ago I saw gelatin printmaking on Utube and thought I'd give it a try. I think it was Linda Germain demonstrating. These are my first attempts. Unfortunately, the gelatin wasn't set in the middle when I put the tin foil cover over it to set it in the fridge, and when I pulled it off it pulled a chunk of gelatin off with it, thus my gel plate wasn't smooth, as it should have been. Rather than start over though, I just went with what I had. I found a wooden ring in the junk drawer and impressed it into the gel three times, then took a fork and ran the tines along the edges and made a few jabs around, just for added interest.

I used only what I had within reach, bottles of yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, and magenta Golden fluid acrylics, and my roller and plate still had some black on them from the last time I used them, which mixed in. Four of them are on Speedball printmaking paper and four are on rice paper. They are 9x12". A couple of them turned out a little dark and muddy looking, but, hey, I'm experimenting here. :)

The one above was pulled from the gel plate with only paint rolled on. The marks are from the torn gelatin.

This one was pulled from the plate after I rolled paint on it, added magenta paint drips, a handmade stencil, and layed some wild turkey feathers on it.

Another one pulled from the plate with only paint rolled over the torn gelatin plate. This one is a little too blue for me, but if I look, I can see all sorts of images in it, which I love.

This is a ghost image off the blue print, meaning I pulled a second print before adding more color.

I layed turkey feathers on top of the paint and pulled this print. The circles are where I pressed the wooden ring into the gel. I love the imagery, but the background colors got a little muddy as they dried.

Paint, paper I had cut a heart from, and feathers.

Mostly magenta paint, paper I had cut a butterfly from, and turkey feathers that already had paint on them from other prints.

Paint, stencil, and feathers; the feathers already had paint on them, so I layed half the feather on the white paper, causing half the feather to be in reverse color. Pretty cool! I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this!

So this is my first batch, and I can't wait to do some more! I love printmaking, and this was so much fun! Maybe I'll pull a few more off this plate while I wait for a smooth one to set!

Have fun with your creative experiments! :)