Gel Plate Printing and Mixed Media Experiments

26 January 2025 | Mindfulness Art, My Artwork

There comes a time in life when one must purchase a gel plate. For me, that time has come. I have also been experimenting with some mixed media techniques – inspired by a book I was given for Christmas. Read on to learn about my first attempts at gel plate printing, and how I’ve been using mixed media this month.

The Gel Plate

I am still learning about gel plates and gel printing techniques; however, I will share what I’ve learnt in this post.

A gel plate is sort of what it sounds like – it’s a synthetic ‘slab’ of bendy, flexible material. I believe they were initially made from gelatine (hence the term ‘gel’), however thankfully it looks like synthetic plates are more popular these days – no doubt due to their animal-friendliness. Additional benefits of a synthetic plate are their longevity and low maintenance.

I bought a Gelli Arts gel plate as they seem to have a lot of positive reviews. It’s fairly small – I opted for a 6” x 6” plate because I’m just playing really. Larger ones are available, but they can be expensive – something to invest in at a later time, I’m sure!

After a couple of hours of YouTube tutorials, I was ready:

Photograph of work station set up for gel plate printing. The picture shows a gel plate, brayer, paint tray, papers, stencils and other objects to create patterns in the prints.

Wait, almost ready:

A photo of a mug of camomile tea on a yellow tea tray.

Ok, now I’m ready.

My first print

I applied a small amount pink, yellow and white acrylic paint to the surface with a brayer (a rubber roller). You need less than you think. This is what it looked like on the plate:

A photograph of the Gelli Arts gel plate covered with acrylic paints (yellow, white and pink paint).

Then I laid a sheet of regular printer paper over the top and used a clean brayer to press down on the surface.

A photograph of Ruth Burton Artist using a brayer to transfer the paint onto a sheet of paper.

I continued to press down with my hands – that’s what the various YouTube tutorials had suggested anyway. And then I carefully peeled the paper off.

Look how pretty!

The first gel plate print by Ruth Burton Artist.

An hour and a half later…

One thing about this gel plate printing is that it’s incredibly addictive. I continued to lay down paint and create prints for another hour and a half on various different papers. Art papers, old road maps, sheet music and coloured scrap papers – nothing too glossy, I’m told this ruins your gel plate. This was the result:

A photograph of all of the prints created in an hour and a half. The picture shows more than twenty sheets of paper with printed designs.

The interesting thing about the gel plate is that if you do a second print (without adding more paint) you get what’s called a ‘ghost’ print. And if you do this a few times, you can effectively clear the plate without having to clean it between prints.

So I just kept laying down paint and printing, and then laying down some more paint. Printing some more, creating a ghost print, creating a ghost print on a previously printed piece. And so on. I used various things to create random marks and patterns. Things like bottle tops, bubble wrap, stamps and stencils.

It was a lot of fun, and the time just flew by.

I would consider it a form of mindfulness art because I wasn’t really concerned about how the end piece looked – you can only control it to a certain extent anyway. It was nice just to be in the moment, experiment with some nice colour combinations, and observe the results as they unfolded.

Here are a few close-ups of all the lovely colours and patterns:

Close up of a gel plate print showing bubble-wrap and plastic lid marks made against a pink-red background.
Close up of a print showing blue spots against a beige background. The effect was created using a stencil.
Close up of a gel plate print showing various random marks made with red, orange and yellow paint.
Close up of a print showing a textured design in various different greens.
Close up of a gel plate print made on old manuscript paper with orange, yellow and green acrylic paints.
Close up of a print made using stencils and bottle tops to create interesting marks and textures.

They’re so tasty – looking at them is like tasting something really nice with your eyes.

And here are a few ‘scrap’ pieces of paper which I used to clean the paint off my brayer before using a different colour. I love them just as much:

A scrap piece of paper used in the gel plate printing process to clean the roller, showing a rainbow of colours.
A scrap piece of paper used in the gel plate printing process to clean the brayer. The dominant colours are blue, yellow and red.

My plan is to collect these as backgrounds or elements for future mixed media artworks. Which leads me on to…

Mixed media experiments

Last time I said I would share my progress with any mixed media techniques.

I have nothing ‘finished’ to show you yet, but these are a few of my mixed media art experiments. In particular, I was interested in exploring techniques to create interesting backgrounds.

A photograph of at least ten sheets of paper laid out with various mixed media techniques employed to create colourful backgrounds.

I’ve been testing layering different mediums – acrylic paint, gesso, texture paste, charcoal, acrylic mediums, pens, Brusho – and using different tools and methods to apply each medium. I’ve also used different materials to create texture, such as fabrics, scrap papers (including newspaper and old sheet music), foil, and tissue paper. And then seeing what patterns I can create with stamps and stencils.

What I’m learning with mixed media art is that (sometimes) more is definitely more. I want to keep adding different elements to these backgrounds to create lots of depth and interest.

Mixed media journal

Just before I finish for the day – as a side project, this is a sketchbook that I covered with mixed media.

Before:

An A5 sized sketchbook with a soft, green cover to be used in a mixed media journal project.

After:

The front and back views of the green sketchbook after being re-covered with mixed media art techniques. The main colours of the cover and now blue, yellow, white, peach and black. Stamps, acrylic mediums, and paper flowers have been added to create interest. The overall design is abstract.

The green cover wasn’t inspiring me, but now I’m looking forward to making it into a mixed media journal (I can use some of my gel prints!).

If anything good comes out of it, I will share – so watch this space!