‘More Speed, Less Haste’ - Gelli Plate Printing by Dicky | GreatArt Magazine

Introduction;

When you first start thinking about making artwork for a blog and especially if you haven’t used the materials before, it can be quite a minefield. My mind started racing with all of the possibilities of what can be produced with Gelli plate printing.

I researched tonnes of video’s, other blogs and on social media to see what can be produced and how to make the artworks. Of course, the artists I researched all made Gelli plate printing look really easy. In reality it’s not always as easy as it looks, though in theory it should be.

I traditionally am a street artist, lettering enthusiast and Spray paint artist. So, this was a challenge that set me slightly outside of my comfort zone, though a challenge I was up for and I was excited to see how I might be able to translate the art I normally make into the Gelli plate printing process. Though, more importantly, the main objective of the blog is to try out the plate, see what works and highlight any difficulties I came across as a total beginner. I hope that you will be able to learn from my findings if you too are considering having a go at Gelli plate printing.

Materials;

Below is a list of materials I used from GreatArt;

GELLI ARTS® | Gel printing plates — rectangular 20 cm x 25cm
MAIMERI | ACRILICO Fine Acrylic Paints – selection of colours
Essdee Ink Roller – 15cm (often known as a brayer)
Clairefontaine | Paint ON Multi-Techniques paper – A3 (though I cut the paper in half)
Abig Baren
WALKRON | Toothed Spatula
uni | POSCA — PC-5M paint marker (or Molotow)
(Magazine cuttings)

Product Highlights;

The Gelli plate itself is interesting, it can feel sticky which I found quite useful for the transfer effect which I will go into later. It can be cleaned with dish washing liquid and a microfiber cloth. Others recommend cleaning with baby wipes or baby oil. I did find the surface was more delicate than I first thought, therefore when I did clean it with a microfiber cloth, I noticed that it made very fine scratches all over the surface. Although, this did not affect the prints I made despite being originally mortified, thinking I had ruined the plate after the first print.

The roller or Brayer was superb quality, very easy to clean and worked perfectly for the job.

The Maimeri acrylic paints were rich in colour, and have a velvety quality and rolled out easily on the plate. However, it is worth mentioning that in a few videos I watched some artists actually combined the paint with a gel medium to make the paint smoother to roll. I did notice that on some of my attempts that the paint had little peaks after applying with the brayer and these did show up in my final results on the paper. Therefore, if I were to continue to print, I would consider using this too.

In regards to the Baren, I felt this was quite a luxury item and the Brayer could be used if you did not want to purchase this item. I did think that it was a good way of keeping the back of the paper clean when flattening onto the plate whereas if you used the Brayer, you did get paint residue on the paper.

The paper was absolutely perfect for the job! I have heard a few horror stories of people using paper that is too thin which resulted in the paper ripping when being lifted from the plate, so watch out for this.

The basic process;

Prepare your workspace

• Cover your table to protect it from paint.
• Gather your materials so everything is within easy reach.

Apply paint

• Squeeze a small amount of acrylic paint onto your Gelli plate.
• Use a brayer to roll the paint evenly across the plate’s surface.

Tip; Start with a thin layer—too much paint can obscure textures and will take too long to dry.

Add texture or design

• Place stencils, natural materials (like leaves), or textured objects onto the painted plate.
• Toothed spatulas create many lines at once and produced some interesting linear effects.
• You can also draw directly into the paint with the end of a brush, a cotton bud, or a stylus. But as I found out, not your finger.
• Another popular technique is to use magazine cuttings to create transfers

Make your print

• Work quickly, the paint layer should still be wet — or slightly tacky.
• Place your paper gently on top of the Gelli plate.
• Smooth it lightly with your hands or a clean brayer or baron to help transfer the paint.
• Peel the paper off carefully to reveal your print.

Tip; Ensure to have a scrap piece of paper next to you so you can roller off the excess paint after every paint application though every step of the process.

Ghost print (optional)

• After removing your first print, sometimes there’s still paint left on the plate.
• Quickly place a new sheet of paper on the plate and press again before the ink dries—this will pick up the leftover paint, creating a lighter “ghost print” (This didn’t work too well for me as in general if you wait for the paint to fully dry, it doesn’t really leave much residue left on the plate).

Layering

• One of the best parts of Gelli printing is making multi-layered prints.
• Once your first layer dries, repeat the process with new colours, stencils, or textures.

Clean up

• Wash your Gelli plate, brayer, and stencils with mild soapy water.
• Dry the plate gently and store it flat, covered with the protective plastic sheets it came with and place back in the box too.

So that all sounds relatively straight forward, right? The most important thing that I realized early on is that you must work very fast after you have rollered the first layer of paint on plate. If you leave it too long the thin layer of paint will dry before you can make shapes or apply the magazine cuttings for transfers.

When I was trying the transfer effect this was especially evident. The magazine page would just lift off the entire layer of paint. Hence the name of the blog came to my mind, ‘more speed, less haste’. This is not normally how I like to work; in fact, it is the opposite of the idiom below, which is where I took the inspiration. It took me a few goes to understand the importance of this!

“More haste, less speed” is an idiom that suggests that working too quickly can actually be counterproductive. It implies that rushing leads to mistakes and inefficiencies, ultimately taking more time to achieve the desired outcome than if one had proceeded with more care and deliberation. The phrase emphasizes the importance of balance between speed and accuracy.

Transfer Printing

This was the technique that initially struck me as something I wanted to try from the offset. It essentially involves placing a magazine cutting directly onto the inked plate waiting for it to dry and then peeling the paper off. This reveals an abstracted version of the original image.

As mentioned, time is of the essence because you do not want the first layer to dry before you place the magazine cutting on the plate, the ink seems to dry very quickly and will not leave the transfer of the image on the plate.

It is recommended that the first colour you put down when transferring is a dark colour or black, I chose black as I always like the contrast when using bright colours in conjunction to make them pop.

Tip; The black and dark colours on the magazine is where the paint sticks, it does not transfer the lighter colours.

Also, make sure you roller evenly over the entire surface area otherwise some areas do not transfer properly.

I chose images of graffiti and street art from some old magazines I had lying around, but you can really use anything at all.

My issue with transferring is this; I just felt that I was plagiarizing the original image and therefore it did not really sit right with me and although I liked the end result, I did feel like I wasn’t creating my own original artwork.

I actually ended up working over the top of the print with posca acrylic markers to apply some lettering of my own and after playing around, I stuck to my theme of ‘more speed, less haste’ and drew the lettering really fast so to keep to this way of thinking and tie in the theme.

This made me think, are the end results of the print actually where this art form ends? Does it lend itself more to a mixed media way of working? Well, as you can see, I did take that opportunity.

I have seen that there are a lot of artists who have also done this, though more with collage. Where the artist cuts up the prints and makes new compositions with the cut pieces. I am sure there are many other ways the prints can be combined in other ways to produce new artworks.

Drawing on the plate with acrylic markers

This was a big learning curve! Now, I had seen this working on videos etc. Due to my interest in lettering, I thought I can just draw or write directly onto the plate and it’s going to look great.

Tip; Rember if you draw directly on to the plate, when you take a print, it’s going to come out in reverse. When I was doing this, I had been printing for about 5 hours and my logic had left me and run off with the milkman. The lettering on my first print using this technique came out backwards because I drew it on in the normal direction! If you want it to come out correctly draw or write in reverse on the plate!

I found that when the acrylic ink from the marker dried on the plate, it actually cracked, though this did not come out on the print and I will tell you why;

I found that despite the ink being fully dry when I added the second layer the acrylic ink from the marker somehow rehydrated itself and became wet again. This meant that it was still wet when I peeled the print off and had bled losing all hard lines. I’m sure there is a scientific explanation, but I had no idea why it did this. Was it because after cleaning the plate still had moisture on it? I am unsure.

Now here is the worst part. I could not for the life of me clean the acrylic marker off the plate. I must have spent a good half an hour or more trying but it just kept smudging more and more. I printed over the top of the residue and nothing transferred so that was OK.

I did feel that my new plate has now been stained as you will see in the photo’s going forward which was a shame aesthetically but I made no difference to the subsequent printing.

I then reworked the end result by adding my lettering theme onto the print with acrylic markers.

Mark making with a spatula

I mentioned earlier that in principle the Gelli plate printing should be relatively easy, well this is where I actually found it a little difficult. Sure, it’s easy to lay down the paint and swirl some patterns into it. What I found challenging is to make the image into a coherent artwork. Mine tended to look like a project from my early school days art class.

I do believe that with some time, practice and maybe more vision than I had, you could make this look really cool. Perhaps due to the fact that I am so used to working with different materials in my regular life, I just struggled to make it look half good.

Tip; when you scrape through the paint, this inevitably leaves peaks in the paint which take some time to dry. Make sure you are really happy with the pattern on the plate before you commit as the drying times will take longer with this technique.

I did find that I could get rid of the black first layer with this technique. It really does allow you to play around with colour a bit more than the transfers, which was liberating at least.

I also found that the larger the tooth more of a bolder effect was achieved. Although there really is no right or wrong way of doing it. I found this for most things I tried.

What I did like about this technique is that it worked really well for layering up the image. You can add as many layers as you see fit.

Conclusion

It is fun! I enjoyed seeing where it would go but I thought I would end up with actual prints that I was happy with instead of reworking them into a mixed media project.

The paints and other materials go a long way so this is a fairly cost-effective way of making art. I did feel that it lends itself more towards being a craft than actually being art though.

I am sure you probably would break some copywrite laws with the transfer printing but this was my favourite out of the three techniques I tried.

If I continued to make more art with the plate then naturally, I would get better and start achieving the results I was hoping for. This goes with mixing of the paint directly onto the plate too. Thus, being something, I also found challenging. Remember, if you add white, it will make the other colours a pastel shade.

Due to drying times (something I am not used to) you can’t knock out as many of these prints as you think you will be able to. So, make sure to are happy with the design on the plate before you apply any paper.

This way of printing would really suit all ages and isn’t massively messy, so everyone can do it from young to old.

As a street artist I couldn’t stop there. So, I decided to use my final images that I was happy with and leave them as free artworks in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in the hope that some eagle-eyed art enthusiasts would spot them and take them home to admire.

I’m not a professional artist so this is a really good way to hopefully get noticed and to also bring a bit of joy to people who love art.

Here are some photos of the placement of the works, they are of course protected in plastic sleeves.