Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Mono Printing Class





















I spent the morning with a bunch of artists learning how to use a gelli plate to make mono prints.

Lisa Matthias was our facilitator and provided gelli plates, botanicals and many ideas.

1) Apply acrylic paint directly to the plate and pulling a print.

2) Using a brush in order to remove paint, let it dry then apply a lift layer to pull the print. Christmas tree.

3) Painting on the plate, letting it dry then applying a lift layer to pull the print. Yellow flower.

4) Apply paint, and press botanicals, cover and pull a incomplete print, lift botanicals, dry, apply a lift layer and pull the print. Blue ones.  If you place a hinge you can capture the detailed print in the holes from the first pull. This process can work with many objects. I used a doily in the blue print top row - kindly donated by another artist.

Interesting that patience is required.  At times the paper needs to sit on the paint for several minutes and just does not work well if you do not wait. Hair dyers were provided to hasten the process.   At other times one has to work fast before the paint dries.  I am very interested to work this on fabric.  After I saw this today I believed a textile medium will be required.

Many of my Folk Art artist pigment bottles were old and it would have helped to give them some water a few days ago to thin a bit.