I thought I would start a series of blog posts about mono-printing - Mono-Print Monday! I'll be mainly taking about the Gelli Arts® gel plate. I'll put up a short post each week with a tip for you to use in your printing.
This week is all about how much paint. No matter how many times you explain, beginners will always put on too much paint and get disappointing prints. Here is how much paint you need - less than you think!
You can see the paint has rolled out smoothly, almost translucent and without any smears or ripples. Here is the print I took and the gel plate afterwards. Notice there is hardly any paint left on it.
The print is crisp and clear and you can see some background paper colour.
Here is how not to do it. Too much paint. You can see it it really thick on the plate and the print it produced was blurred. There was also loads of paint left on the gel plate.
There was so much paint on the plate that I got another (blurred!) print.
Most people use squeezy tubes or bottles of paint with their gel plates. Whilst they are quick to grab and there are no brushes or palette knives to clear up they are very prone to splurging out way too much paint. You can always remove some onto scrap paper with a roller but what a waste! I prefer to use pots of paint with a lolly stick for grabbing out a small amount of paint. You get much more control than with the tubes.
So if you are disappointed with your mono-prints try using less paint!
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