2016 #9 It's In the Bag {by Jo Firth Young

2016 Topic 9: Gelli Plate

Hi everyone Jo Firth-Young with you today and am happy to be sharing a Gelli Plate project with you.  I really enjoy working with this great tool - its great for creating lots of layers or simple layers - on my project I'm leaning towards the 'less is more'  and 'clean and simple' side of things.  I work a lot on paper and card but for this project I wanted to print on to fabric.  We all need our own bags now for shopping and so I've decorated a simple calico bag that will be very useful - I've kept the embellishments to a minimum so its nice and flat to fold up and keep in a handbag.

I used the latest addition to the Gelli Plate range - the minis - available in 2 packs of 3 different shapes... I chose to use the hexagon plate because I wanted to create a patchwork/tiled effect on the bag.... oh, and because I do have a fondness for hexagons!

Step One: The bag I'm using is made of a lightweight calico and measures 40x37cm. Before I started printing on the bag I carried out a few experiments on paper to see how the stencils I'd pulled out of my stack would work, and how they looked with the small gelli plate. The prints on the left hand page are the first print pulled, on the left hand page they're the clean-up or ghost print. Its interesting to see the prints side by side.

The mini plates measure around 3inches in size, and I generally use them by laying them on a slim acrylic blog and taking it to the substrate rather than bring the substrate to the plate as you would work with a larger gelli plate. 

Here are the colours I planned to work with - all opaques as I wanted the layers to block each other out.

Step Two: The hexagons on this bag are like snippets of fabrics (like a patchwork) and also a sampler of basic gelli print techniques.  I wanted to roughly plan where the hexagons would be printed so I laid them on to the bag and photographed them so I had something to refer to.  I kept some of these hexagons in place while working so I could judge spacing to help the hexagons line up and fit together.

I found I needed a thicker coat of paint on the gelli plate when printing on fabric than I would usually have when printing on paper.  I also put 2 sheets of baking parchment inside the bag to prevent paint from seeping through.

Here is a close up of the bag, I've numbered the hexagons so I can explain how each print was made.

1:  Plate was covered with Blue Oyster paint, bubble wrap was pressed into the paint and a print was made.

2, 10:  basic full plate single colour print.

3, 7, 8, 16:  These prints were made using masks.  Paint was added to the plate, the mask was laid in position on the bags surface and the plate pressed on top to make the print.

4: A solid full print was made using Bubble Gum paint, a mask was laid on top (protecting this dark pink) and matching up the hexagons, a second full plate print was made.

5: A solid plate single colour print (Zucchini), then I painted bubble wrap with Blue Oyster, pressed the bubble wrap onto the gelli plate and then pressed the plate onto Zucchini hexagon - this transferred the bubble wrap print.

6: This print is a mask of a singe flower.  I laid it onto the bag and pressed a Blue Oyster print over the top.  Then, using the paint remaining on the gelli plate (called a ghost or clean up print) I pressed hexagon no.15

9: This was print of a stencil, that I also covered with a 2nd generation ghost print to show the hexagon shape.

11: This hexagon is the ghost print of the mask print on no.4

12: This hexagon has 3 layers used in two prints. The first layer was a solid full print of Bubble Gum, the second was a mask of a heart and the third layer was a sheet of punchinella.  The heart mask and punchinella were laid together over the Bubble Gum print and the gelli plate covered in Blush was lined up and printed over the top.

13: The ghost print of the punchinella layer of no.12

14: A hexagon solid print was made, and a stencil laid over the top and a green print made over the top.

17: This is the ghost print of hexagon no.9

When all the hexagons were printed and everything was dry I sewed buttons into the centres of several of the flowers.

I've really enjoyed decorating the bag and using the mini gelli plates.  The other shapes available in the sets are oval, round, square, rectangle & triangle all of which would work just as nicely on a bag or other projects.
I hope I've inspired you to work onto fabric as well as paper with the gelli plate -  I found it just as easy as working on paper - have fun with it.

Have fun with your gelli plates - I look forward to seeing what you create!

Jo

When I'm not here you can find me at www.jofirthyoung.blogspot.com & on twitter @jofyjo & on instagram @jofyjo.

How fab is this! the mini gelli shapes are perfect for this patchwork effect. The clever layering and use of stencils makes for a really professional printed look. I think the shape also makes the prints look dimensional. ~Darcy

We would love to see how you interpret this Gelli Plate topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #9: Gelli Plate, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Gelli Plate link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, May 15th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.