The No-Gelli Style: Experiments in Monoprint

Or, "How to Make Several Messes in a Fairly Short Time."

In which we discover (through accidental means) that printing onto clear tape using a glass plate rather than a Gelli Plate is trickier than expected....read on for more.
:)

OK. So I knew that I had a large-ish nice piece of glass, salvaged from an old table. Also available to me were a number of items useful when making prints of all sorts. 

I'd just viewed a very interesting video over at YouTube on how to print onto clear packing tape. Here is that fun video:

I just thought that this was such a cool idea.

So I had nearly everything for trying something similar. Everything except a Gelli Plate, that is. Glass does not flex, but Gelli Plates will, so I knew that my trial and error processes might yield very different results. I was right.

I tried something very basic and simple using a few colors. the video suggests allowing paint to dry on the Gelli Plate, and so I tried that with my glass sheet. Here's how that went:

I was going to take several tape pulls, but quickly learned how that wouldn't work at all. OK. So it then occurred to me to try the same process with glass using newly applied, wet paint. I set the 4 strips aside, painted and sticky sides up, to dry. After the paint that I'd transferred onto the tape had dried most of the way, I dusted on some copper colored micah powder by Perfect Pearls. This filled in the gaps, as per the above video.

Here is a slightly better view 

(+ 2 little old book page pulls just beyond):

I'd used the Talbot Arts Release paper sheets during class time when I was teaching a form of fused collage. I'd also used it in my own home, and found it to be very versatile and also easy to use. I knew that I did not want the newly printed strips of tape to stick where they did not belong, and so I grabbed one sheet of release paper and then tried sticking the tape strips onto its surface.

Yes, I did try. You see, the very nature of release paper is to not allow sticky things to remain stuck to its surface, which is how come stickers come packed with their own release paper backing.

Yeah. Not one of my brighter ideas, but at least for now the tape strips aren't sticking to anything wrong.

The rest of the monoprint experience that day was just as much of a learning process for me. From the mistakes I made, I managed to save some of the pigment. This left me with a weird looking 2 page spread in what I call my "giant" journal.

My first try at doing the tape transfer included some torn strips of blue painter's tape by 3M (as a mask, in place of the torn deli paper used in the Gelli video above). I chose to remove that tape before the paint could dry, and then used that as a means by which to transfer the colors on it to the journal. This was too patchy, so I later used the side edges of the same 2 pages as a wiping off surface for my 2 brayers.

I had nothing to lose, so I tried a few more things using a fairly simple look in the paint as it lay on the glass. Below are a few examples. Though the light for these photos was very difficult to work with, I did somehow manage to capture a little bit of the look of things, I hope.

I thought that the black card stock sheets 

would be fun to use in a future collage.

I try not to waste pigment. 

It's always interesting when I try.

My brayer plate had some nice colors on it.

Suitable for collage play, do you think?

The Release Paper I Use

For anyone interested, Talbot Arts carries some very unique and interesting supplies. I've ordered from that small, unique product line a few times already, and was always pleased with the customer service and the products there. The release paper that they sell is fairly long lasting stuff, and I should know, as I was pretty rough with it, as were some of the students I once had. It is good quality, nicely crisp, sturdy stuff, unlike the average backing for most stickers. A link to the Talbot's small but fascinating store's page is HERE.

That, by the way, is my Neglected Supply for this week's link party. 

Anyway, that's been my most recent adventure in trying a nicely messy new idea.

:)