Tracings on Gelli®

******WARNING - some of these techniques may permanently stain your Gelli® plate ******

This week on the Gelli Arts® blog Birgit was showing how to use your Gelli® to make tracings and prints. I though I must have a go at that! Here's her video:

I tried Copic markers and Sharpie markers. Both worked well.

Looking around the art room I wondered what else would work. I was a little worried about ruining my Gelli® but not worried enough to stop me trying everything anyway!!!

Posca paint pens worked well as I expected they would because they are filled with acrylic paint.

I used Inktense and Neocolour water-soluble sticks either dipped into water or used on a damp Gelli®.

Water-soluble graphite worked in a similar way but was difficult to remove from the plate afterwards.

Oil pastels didn't give a great result and stuck to the plate, however Shiva oil sticks printed nicely.

Metallic green in the background is Shiva stick.

I loved the soft effect from pan pastels but they were very difficult to remove from the plate afterwards. I managed to get several prints from the one application. I scrubbed them off with acetone nail polish remover in the end, my Gellli® looked OK but I don't know if any long term damage has been done to it.

I used fine line applicator bottles  to trace over the image with fluid acrylics, it worked well but took ages to dry.

For some of the prints I used metallic fluid acrylics instead of ordinary acrylics to lift the paint for a more textured effect.

I tried mixing and matching various materials on the one print.

And of course I had to try it out on fabric which gave a more subtle print and was a bit more unpredictable. You definitely need to use a little more paint on the fabric ones.