Overprinting on the Gel Plate

I have been doing Tara Axford’s gel plate design course through Fibre Arts Take two and it has pushed me to try numerous things on the gel plate. The results are instantaneous so you can end up with a pile of prints quite quickly . In this series I have been mixing colours on the gel plate using only the three primary colours and over printing the leaf on copy paper. Each of the first two images print has three prints overprinted on top of one another. The first image shows red, orange and yellow overprints in leaf silhouettes with the second print using the reverse colour order. The third print in this image is the ghost of the prints. The second photo shows the same process with blue, yellow and green overlays. By using the same colours in different combinations it is possible to get a wide range of effects that all blend nicely together. I used nandina major sprigs for these prints.

The third image shows the final overprint ghost image with all plate tone removed with deli paper before removing the plant material to get the ghost print. This gives a very clear background image and I will probably make these into a concertina book form. This image provides possibilities for added stitch on fabric.