An Evening of Gelli Prints

Quite awhile ago, my dear daughter, RosieKate, gave me a Gelliprint kit. We had created some prints together with her tools when I was there visiting so she thoughtfully gave me this kit to get me started at my home. I have to shamefully confess I have never used it. Until tonight. I have been wanting to make art or something like it for weeks now, as I have been harvesting the garden, teaching school classes and cooking, cleaning and running the household. Art never comes before those things and when those tasks are finally done, so am I. I know you can relate...

Another reason I had never used the kit is because I thought I didn't have enough texturing tools to work with for interesting prints. Katie had accumulated a collection of wallpapers and stencils and I thought I had nothing to work with. But then I raided both my baking tools closet and my pottery studio.....

One criteria for the tools is that they not be too sharp as the gelli pad is easily damaged. 

I found plenty of plastic modeling tools used for fondant in my cake decorating supplies.

In my pottery studio I had a treasure trove of texturing tools. I was always interested in ways to give clay surfaces unique textures when I was a potter. I selected a few items to experiment with- a disposable grill cover (ended up not using it since it was metal and I was afraid it would damage the gelli pad), a rubber bath mat, some drawer liner, a rubber texture mat (I've used that green mat for clay and pie dough too!) some jute twine, and plastic pearl strings.

I really liked how the fondant shaping tools were working. I'm not sure if you can see the fall colors I was using- green, red and gold.

The plastic pearl string for the blue one...

The doily had great texture but the paper absorbed all the paint so did not work at all!

I liked how this came out.

I had a lot of fun doing a couple hours of creative paint work.

I am inspired! I need some small stencils and I plan to get a larger gelli pad.

These five inch prints will be useful for making some greeting cards.