Can it legit be called a “technique” if it works only 25% of the time?

I’m thinking NO.

I was super excited when I discovered that it is possible to pull a resist print from the Gelli plate by stamping with pigment ink onto glossy paper from a magazine, then pressing that to a gel plate covered with paint.

From yesterday, this was literally the first one I tried:

I think we can all agree there was, upon seeing that, reason to be excited.

I tried a fair few prints later in the day, using many different ink and paint combos and had nothing like the success of that one. Even the other ones from the same session were good, but not as impressive:

So, I thought I needed to sit down and do a rather orderly series of attempts to see what happened.  Try to come up with a set of rules that would, if not guarantee success, would at lease make it more likely.

Not bloody likely, more like it. This is the array of stuff I tried – and it looks like I cut out the Crafter’s ink pad and the Studio G one:

This is what I got:

For the most part, a pretty appalling array.  I did discover a few things.  First, and most disappointingly, the only pigment ink that works consistently was the one from the Greetings Card kit.  None of the ColorBox inks of any kind worked at all – not the pigment (tried a few colours) not the Chalk ink, not the Cats eye ones.  The Studio G left a very very faint hint and might be worth trying again with a jucier pad.

In all cases, at least some of the magazine text transferred.  So I feel confident the paper is not the problem.

What worked 95% of the time was:

There’s the Crafter’s ink!

The rules, so far as I can determine thus far are:

1. The paint on the plate must be thin – almost thin enough to be called transparent.

2. The pigment ink must be wet.  Ink, stamp on the glossy paper, then flip it over on to the plate and burnish the back right away.  Don’t dawdle. If the ink is too dry it seems to work less well.

3. Let it dry 100% before adding the next layer of paint and trying to pull the print off.

4. Again, this layer needs to be thin, but don’t overwork it.  Load the brayer off the plate, roll on the paint and brayer just enough so you can see the image thru the paint.  Pull the print quick – don’t let they paint get too dry!

That process resulted in these:

The lower right image used the Crafter’s ink and the Basics paint.  The other two used the Greetings Card ink and Basics paint for the upper right and Crawford & Black for the left one.

As for the most part you are going to only have ONE CHANCE to get a good result, this might just be a little too frustrating to actually try to justify as a technique.  To my mind, if 90% of people, using 90% of common variations on the basic supplies can’t get a good result at LEAST 50% of the time, it just might be filed away as interesting, but annoying and potentially wasteful.

But it sure has been fun!

 

Gelli plate play – it’s been tooooo long

NOTE:  Might be worth reading the next post before you embark on the stamping technique!

I have not really felt up to much crafty play for quite a while.  BUT I have been dreaming about the Gelli plate and remembering how much fun it was to play with.  I watched a video – well more than one, I’m sure – about resist transferring of a magazine image on to the plate, which you then pull off by doing a basic, heavy-bodied paint pull.  This one is the first one I saw, I think.

There was mention in some videos about the combination of the ink and glossy paper quality making a big difference.  Looking thru may magazines, which are mostly scrapbooking ones, I came across my ancient Rubberstampmadness mags.

The paper seemed thick and glossy and it also seemed that the image weren’t fashion shots but art and stamp samples.

There are a lot of stamp catalogs full of cool images, and some printed art work, like the BEAUTY image here that would all make very cool prints or additions to other art.

 

And guess what?  They worked a treat.

One video mentioned that some people had success with printing on an ink jet printer and doing the same process.  I did not.  I tried printing on pain paper, photo paper, on coated matt cardstock, on sticky label paper, etc. etc.  and nothing worked.

So that gave me a bit of an idea.  If I stamped on to the glossy paper, might that transfer? I experimented with about 8 different inks and a stamp.  The ones I had the highest hopes for (Archival Ink, Clearly Better clear stamp ink, Staz-on and Memento) were all fails.  Not expecting much I tried Distress ink, Distress Oxide ink, Adirondack and Kaleidoscope.  Also all fails.

Just on a whim I tried PIGMENT ink.  Crazy, but it worked.

I did have a few fails using cheaper paint but the Basics was good pretty much every time.

The process is simple.

1. Stamp the image using pigment ink. Get a good coating of ink on the stamp.

Sorry for the poor quality there – I had already used the image before I realized the photo was crap.  Doh! I suspect things like Versamagic or maybe even chalk ink MIGHT work, and COLOUR pigment ink will add a different dimension to it if it works! – I’ll try that next and see. But this is very generic black pigment ink.

I let the image dry but when I tried to dry it with the heat gun then transfer it, it didn’t work.  So I think the ink needs to by dry-ISH but not super dry.

2. Roll the paint onto the gelli plate.  I find the darker colours work best for this stage. You need a thin coat but not too thin.  Press the stamped image into the paint – I burnished one with a teflon spreader. one with my fingernail, one with a spoon.  Just make sure you get good contact.

LET IT DRY.

Remember the old Creative Palette that I hated?  I used one of the bits to roll out the white paint and get a thin coat on the brayer.  But you can also load the brayer by rolling in in paint on scrap paper.  Not too thick a coat.

As mentioned in a few of the videos, if you can SEE the image slightly, it’ll be a good print. Pull it.  Give the back a good rub.

And the coolest thing is that the text from the magazine transfers too!

I am so happy to have had a play.  It was seriously fun.  And now I know I can use my stamps as well as magazine images I am looking forward to more playtime!

Maybe even more regular blogging?  Maybe…..

Cute Christmas Tags – easy cut for a change!

Hello and Happy Holidays!

Every year I create Christmas tags for my own wrapping.  I often create circles, because I have the punches and they are easy.  But some people have told me that not everyone has a circle punch of the right size, and dies are too hard to do many cuts quickly.

SO, this year, I made a simple grid of tags.  Not a lot of white space except at the edges, and it should print on any size paper, A4, US Letter, even smaller, if you want teeny tiny tags.

Cute, hummm? You can download the sheet here

Hope they help with your holiday wrapping!