Printing with Gelli Arts� Printing Plates and DIY Foam Printing Plate Stamps!

Easy-to-make foam printing plate stamps create fabulous textured Gelli prints! Watch this video to see how to create DIY foam stamps for unique prints on cards!

FYI - Joan did this project a few years ago and it was such a big hit - we decided to create a DIY Card Printing Kit and a DIY Stamping & Printing Kit for you!  You can follow along her blog using the items in your new kit.  Feel free to use additional items to create textures or additional colors of acrylic paints!  You can make similar stamps with the foam sheets included in your kits.  

Now on to Joan's original blog!  Have fun!

 

They're so easy and fun to make, you'll have a collection of these stamps in no time! 

Express your creativity by making the stamps for printing your cards! 

There's a variety of materials that you can use to make a texture stamp. Here we're using thin sheets of foam�available at art stores for use as printmaking plates. It cuts easily with scissors or a craft knife�and drawing into it with a pen, pencil, stylus or other pointed tool gives you endless design opportunities! 

Decorative-edge scissors cut smoothly through the thin foam material�and hand punches work well too! If you have a die-cutting machine (like a Cuttlebug, etc.)�you can run it through with an embossing folder and create a very cool embossed surface on the foam. Then cut your own shapes from the embossed printing foam! 

Instead of the foam sheets for printmaking, you can also use styrofoam plates or repurposed clean food trays. 

Incise lines into the pieces with a pencil, ballpoint pen or stylus. Cut or punch out some small areas. The design can be simple shapes, or as intricate as you want. You can plan your design beforehand, or just wing it! 

As you make your marks in the foam, keep in mind that what you see is what you get. So that means you can write words in the foam too! No need to figure out reversals�how perfect for adding a sentiment to your cards! 

The prints in the video are made on the 5"x7" Gelli plate  �using Amsterdam Standard Series Acrylic paints and Pebeo Studio Acrylics. 

(You can use the 5" x 5" Gelli� plate and our new Gelli Arts� premium acrylic paints in your kit).

Strathmore has a new line of printmaking paper and they've made it into beautiful card and envelope sets. The cards and envelopes shown here are all printed on Strathmore Printmaking Cards.

The following steps describe the process shown in the video for creating the Gelli printed card: 

1. Roll a thin layer of acrylic paint onto the Gelli plate with a brayer 
2. Press a texture tool (like bubble wrap) into the paint 
3. Cover with your card and pull a print 
4. Wipe the plate clean (not essential�but makes a nice clean print) 
5. Roll a layer of a contrasting color onto the plate with a brayer 
6. Place your foam stamps on the painted plate 
7. Cover with thin paper (such as deli paper)�to press the stamps into the paint and remove the paint from the plate around the stamps 
8. Remove the cover paper and remove the foam stamps 
9. Place your printed card on the Gelli plate to print a second layer 
10. Rub to transfer the paint and pull your print�the second layer on your card!

TIP: Your printed image will 'pop' more if the paint colors for each layer are of different value (light/dark). You'll get very different results with transparent paints vs. opaque ones. Metallic paints also offer an exciting option as one of the layers. 

While you're printing your cards, also print on the envelopes! 

There are various ways to create a blank space for the address. Here are a few suggestions: 

• Strategically place a piece of torn or cut paper on the painted, stamped Gelli plate to create a blank space. 
• Place a removable label on the envelope as a mask. Print over it�then remove the label. 
• Scrape or wipe off an area of wet paint on the Gelli plate, then print your envelope. 

Receiving hand-printed cards and envelopes is always special! Printing your unique stamp images on beautiful paper enhances your artwork and shows the love! 

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

Winner is Roberta K!

And to show OUR love�we have an exceptional GIVEAWAY for cardmaking!!! 

The prize kit includes: 

1 - 5"x7" Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate 
1 - Strathmore Printmaking Cards - Package of 50 Cards and Envelopes 
8 - Amsterdam Standard Series Acrylic Paint - 120 ml tubes (4.1 fl. oz.) 
1 - Speedball 4" Pop-In Soft Rubber Brayer
1 - Inovart 'Presto' Foam Printing Plates - Package of 20 - 9"x12" sheets 

To enter the giveaway, click on the red "ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE" button below! (This will ensure that we can contact the winner and that entries are limited to one per person. One winner will be selected from all the entries via a random number generator to receive this very special giveaway!) 

Entries will be accepted until Wednesday, February 25th at 1pm. Our lucky winner will be contacted by email and announced here on the blog and on our Facebook page no later than Wednesday, the 25th at 5pm! 

ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

Special thanks to our friends at Strathmore for their generous donation to our giveaway prize! 

Remember, we now have Gelli partners all over the world, so it's easier than ever to find a Gelli retailer near you! 



Good Luck and Happy Printing! 

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Intaglio-Inspired Gelli Printing

See how you can achieve an intaglio effect � without a press! � using a styrofoam

printing plate, a ballpoint pen, acrylic paint � and a Gelli plate!

Intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-ee-oh) is a printmaking process using a plate that has been inscribed or etched. Ink is applied to the plate and pushed into the grooves. The plate is then carefully wiped to remove the ink from its surface, so that ink remains only in the incised areas. When the plate is put through a press, the high pressure pushes the paper into the grooves and transfers the ink to create an intaglio print.

We�re taking the basic concept of intaglio and adapting it to Gelli printing! With the Gelli plate, there's no need for a press! You won't have to meticulously wipe the plate for printing :) And there�s no need for special inks � acrylic paint works just fine!

Follow these step-by-step instructions for creating an intaglio effect:

1. Use a ballpoint pen (or pencil or stylus) to inscribe a design into a styrofoam printing plate.

TIP: Once the styrofoam plate is ready, I like to stick it onto a piece of Press �n Seal (food wrap) to keep the back of the plate clean. Doing this is not essential to the printing process. But it keeps things from getting messy :)

2. Apply a generous amount of acrylic paint to the styrofoam plate.

3. Use a squeegee to spread paint across the foam plate. Make sure the paint is pushed down into the incised lines � while the surface is wiped as clean as possible.
Note: An old credit card or piece of mat board will work as a squeegee.

TIP: After you squeegee the paint onto the foam plate, you can roll the surface with a brayer. And instead of wiping the plate to remove surface paint � just pull a relief print! To do this � quickly cover the plate with a piece of paper and rub � and pull a print! The image in a relief print is reversed.

4. Flip the styrofoam plate onto the Gelli plate, paint-side down � and roll over the back of the plate with a clean brayer. The paint in the grooves will transfer to the gel plate. Remove the foam plate.

5. Cover the gel plate with your printing paper. Rub to transfer the paint � then pull your print.

Good things to know:

One of the wonderful benefits of this technique is that the final print is right-reading! That means the printed image is not reversed � and written words will read exactly as you wrote them :)

• The styrofoam plate is durable, so you can use your image over and over!
• Perfect for printing fabulous art journal template pages � creating lines and spaces � and you can work back into your prints!
• If you are working in layers, try an intaglio layer as your last one. That will give you a line drawing over a background image!
• Clean styrofoam food trays and plates will work for this technique! What a great way to upcycle those products :)

Foam printing plates, like those seen in this video, are available at Dick Blick, Daniel Smith, and many other art supply retailers.

Intaglio-inspired Gelli print (black lines) �
embellished with Distress Stains, Inktense pencils, Neocolor II crayons,
rubber stamps and collage.

Happy Printing!!

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