Gelatin print pictures

I promised more pictures....

This first group has some of my favorites. For some, stamps were impressed in the paint covered gelatin, for others tools were dragged in, or items such as punchinella (sequin waste) were laid on top before printing, fork tines dipped in paint, and some have a combination.



One of the most difficult things was having enough paint on the gelatin, without using too much, although second prints from those over-inked prints were very interesting. Below are two prints with the left being the first print, and the right being the second print. Each have interesting possibilities for further enhancement.



Ellen printed these next two, so I'm not sure if she added more paint to the first one after printing the second, but I think she used leaves as a resist in the second, and then used them to print with (there may have already been a ghost image on the fabric). They are my favorite prints of hers, and I love the leaf detail in the first one.

I think this was my first print, and I found it difficult to control the stamps when trying to press it into the paint on the gelatin, because it was very slippery.

Gelatin Printing and stamping

Last week, my friend Ellen and I got together to try gelatin printing. I've been reading and thinking about this for quite a while, but hadn't tried it yet, and I had recently purchased another book that included the technique, it was time!

I pulled out my trays of fabric paint, brayers, stamps, picked some leaves from the garden and covered the table with a plastic tablecloth to protect it.We turned out the gelatin onto foil, so we'd be able to lift and move it if we wanted to.


At first, we tried to use larger pieces of fabric, but ended up tearing it into pieces that were just a bit larger than the gelatin, and found it much easier to work with. We poured paint onto the gelatin an dused brayers to spread it out, and sometimes forks worked even better to spread several colors without overblending the colors. We used forks, paint scrapers, and anything we could think of, including caps from spray bottles. Whenever we used stamps to create designs in the paint, we stamped the ink off onto another piece of fabric, or in my case, my painting apron.

The time flew by, and we ended up with fabric spread out to dry on two racks. Here's the rack that had most of our fabrics - mine are mostly in the front half, and Ellen's in the back half. I've taken some close-ups of some of Ellen's fabrics, and once I take some of mine, I'll post my favorites.



Although we only needed one gelatin plate each, both of us mixed up more than one pan of gelatin, because we didn't think they would hold up nearly as long as they did, and hopefully we'll use them to print more fabirc before they dry out and become unusable.