on August 12, 2016Printing with Jelly : Easy monoprinting at home using a gelatin plate
I have recently discovered this interesting way of printing with jelly. The method is wonderfully gooey and messy, and can be done with cheap and easily available equipment.
The idea is that you make a gelatin plate – basically a large slab of jelly – which you can then use as a surface to print with.
Making the gelatin plate
We used this Dr. Oetker leaf gelatin, which we made up following the instructions on the packet, but using double the ammount of gelatin. We used 2 packets, and 2 litres of water to fill a baking tray, and one smaller dish.
There are several different recipes online for how to make a gelatin plate. Some recipes use glycerine to create a more sold and permanent gelatin plate. I would definitely love to try this next. Ours was not really very solid, we should maybe have left it longer to set, but worked well enough for an hour or so of printing.
Printing with Jelly
To print with your plate, you need to first cover it with paint. Ideally, you should use acrylic paint and a roller to spread it out thinly over the surface of your jelly. However, we didn’t have a roller, so we just spread the paint with a brush.
Next, you need to add some stencils or objects to your printing plate to make your design. You can use ready made stencils, or make your own out of card. You can also use other objects like leaves, flowers, petals or feathers.
Once you can created your design, press a blank piece of paper of card onto your plate and press down firmly over the whole surface. When you lift the paper you should see your design.
Now you can lift off the stencil itself, or the other objects you used and take a ‘ghost print’ – a print of what is left on the gelatin plate. This creates a completely different textured print, but still using your original design.
Taking it further
Once you have tried out these basic steps for printing with jelly, you can take it further by layering different prints and patterns.
These prints were made with hand cut cardboard stencils layered on top of each other using different shades of pink and purple.
I really loved the hands-on messiness of this project. Once you have your gelatin plate and some paint, the options for prints are pretty much endless – but it is also just great fun just to get your hands dirty and play with the wobbly jelly !
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