Ghost Prints on Deli Paper

When I first purchased a packet of 1000 deli papers I thought I was being very extravagant but they have become and excellent resource. Not only are they so useful in cleaning up the gel plate or removing background plate tone for sharp ghost images but as a printing medium in their own right they make lovely translucent prints. Above is an example of gingko ghost prints onto deli paper

Using Gel Prints in Other Art Work

Fabric (or paper) can be used in other art work. In the little sample above I have printed some light acrylic onto silk to create the effect of fungi growing on a log. I have used a piece of wool jersey dyed in a dirty pot ands some pieces of cut felted grey wool from some felted balls I made. The green is random stitched dyed cheesecloth using elongated button hole stitch.

The silk satin was crumpled and placed on the plate which had a light green/grey application of acrylic applied to the plate. The crumpled satin meant the paint would be taken up in varying degrees with the hollows of the crumples getting less paint than the hills. I didn’t want too much contrast but I didn’t want to use plain white. To add additional texture I also used some clean up baby wipes from cleaning the plate.

I cut out circles and made a series of Suffolk puffs (yoyos) which I folded in half and stitched onto the substrate fabric. The silk did not lose its sheen so I am encourages to try this method of colouring small pieces of silk in a more 2 D landscape piece.

Above you can see the crumpled silk satin as it was placed on the plate and the resulting fabric that was used to make the fungi.

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.

Printing With Leaves - Silhouette

I tried cutting out leave shapes in yuppo but I just wasn’t happy with the results. It is Autumn here and there is a wealth of windfall leaves around so I decided to go with the actual leaves and use them as a mask on the gel plate. I also used some bits of palm fibre to get the squiggly lines in the prints. Experimenting with colour as I go. These are just basic silhouette shapes - It is the ghost prints that I am interesting in pulling off the plate. Still using just the basic colours in Golden open acrylics.

Simple Shapes

Next was a move to simple shapes referenced by Kandinsky. The first print above is my brayer cleaning sheet which shows the colours I was working with, mixing them on the plate.

You can see the silhouette print and its corresponding ghost print in the next four prints. The very fine lines of the first print were made with a credit card edge.

The last print is an overlay of a ghost print printed in lavender (red, blue and white paints) with sienna overprint.

The shapes were cut from yuppo to give a sharp definition. This sort of experimentation makes you realise the complexity of work like the Kandinsky inset at the top which was my starting point for inspirations

Using a Gel Plate to transfer a Black and White Injet Image

A Black and white Image (at bottom and its transfer to white cotton

The gel plate can be used to transfer images to fabric from a black and white print out to fabric. It only works with black and white images and it only works with presentation paper. This presentation paper has a gloss finish (on both sides). DO NOT USE PHOTO PAPER as this will stick to your plate and ruin it. There is some sort of chemical reaction that occurs between the photo paper and the gel plate.

The process is print off your black and white image on an inkjet printer using the gloss presentation paper. Place the image flat down on the gel plate. Wait a few minutes and you will be able to peal off the paper and see the imprint of the image on the gel plate.

Use either an acrylic paint or gel medium to make a light layer over the top of the gel plate image and place the paper/fabtic substrate over the acrylic medium you have used. Wait a few minutes and lift up one corner to check if transfer has occurred. Remember fabric prints will take longer than paper for the bond to set. If it has, pull up the substrate and there is your print - it will be mirror image.

The images above are a printed copy of a zentangle my granddaughter created and the print onto fine cotton. I used gel medium in the transfer so that the print remained black and white. When trialling things I usually use a fine cotton because the paints dry much more quickly on the fabric and I do not need to leave the fabric sitting on the gel plate overnight. Of course now the image is ready for further stitch or embellishment.

At our local art show some of the ladies had stitched copies of drawings their grandies had made. This would be an easy way to transfer those drawings to cloth. Make a black and white copy of the drawing and transfer it to cloth and then use stitch/paints to reintroduce the colour