Fun with Gelli Plate Prints

Introduction 6

Materials, paints & techniques

MATERIALS
The Gelli Plate 12
Paints 14
Paper and Fabric 16
Tools 18
Stamps 20

COLOURS
Understanding and Mixing Colours The Colour Palette 24
The Colour Wheel 25
Colour Gradations 26
Saturation 27
Complementary Colours 28
Colours Around Us 29
Developing Your Own Colour Combinations 30

PRINTING
Printing with Simple Household Objects 34
Printing Simple Shapes 36
Multicolour Printing 38
Ghost Prints 40

STENCILS & STAMPS
The Grunge Effect 44
Potato Printing 48
Sketchbook with Potato Printing 50
Fabric Collection and Yellow Bag 52
Foam Rubber Stamps 54
Eraser Stamps 56
Japanese Fabric Bags 58

RESIST PRINTING
Wax Resist Technique 62
Motif Printing with Magazines 64

WATERCOLOURS
Using Watercolours 72

FREESTYLE
Printing Freestyle Patterns 76
Combining with Other Materials 78
Printing on Tissue Paper 79
Printing Large Surfaces or Joins 80
Printing Aprons 82
Printing Mandalas  84

From Print to Design A Whole New World of Gelli Printing 90

Projects

Mini Book 96
Travel Bags 98
Gardening Gloves 104
Japanese Pouch 105
Cans, Boxes, and Bowls 106
Covering Objects with Tyvek® 108
Art Wall 110
Geometric Shapes 112
3D Geometric Shapes 114
Lampshades 116
Covering with Printed Tissue Paper 117
Shopping Bag 120
Bunting 121
Zipped Bag 122
Collage of Various Prints 124
Kimono 126
Lunch Bag 128
Bag with Rings 130
Oven Gloves 131

APPENDIX
Templates 134

About Sabine Ickler

Sabine Ickler loves creating new things and expressing her feelings for colours and shapes in her work. She is a graphic designer and mixed-media artist. She loves the large, bright patterns from the seventies from her childhood, and now uses those bold colours as vintage patterns or interpreted in a modern way for projects such as covers for sketchbooks or travel diaries. Sabine enjoys how gelli printing offers the exciting opportunity to quickly and easily print her own patterns on paper, fabric and even on suitcases or furniture.

All Things Crafty

An absolute visual delight. Whether youre a beginner or a seasoned mixed-media artist, this book is packed with creativity, colour, and endless printmaking possibilities.

From the moment you open it, the photography steals the showeach page is exquisitely styled, rich in texture, and full of beautiful prints that instantly spark your imagination. Its a true feast for the eyes, even before you get your hands inky. The layout is clean and intuitive, with a contents list that makes navigating the book a breeze. This is especially helpful if youre diving back in to revisit a particular technique or idea.

The Materials section is an absolute gem, covering all the essential supplies in an easy-to-digest format. From types of gelli plates (including a DIY recipe!) to paints, papers, fabrics, tools, and stampsthis section alone is a wonderful primer for beginners and a good refresher for more experienced printmakers.

Every subsection is paired with informative text and clear visuals, making it easy to follow and incredibly engaging. Following the materials, Ickler and Klink dive into color theoryexploring gradation, saturation, and harmonybefore launching into a series of fun and creative printing techniques. 

Rather than being a rigid step-by-step manual, this book serves as a sourcebook for ideas and inspiration. It encourages exploration and play, inviting readers to experiment and find joy in the process of printing.

Fun with Gelli Plate Prints beautifully captures the spirit of creativity that Gelli printing embodies. Its not just instructionalits motivational. Whether youre looking to create prints for collage, cards, fabric, or just for the sheer fun of it, this book is a celebration of the artform.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to spark their creativity and dive into the colorful world of Gelli plate printing. I have had lots of fun experimenting with plants, cotton reels and multi-colour prints! Congratulations again to Sabine Ickler and Katrin Klink on this joyful and inspiring publication!

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artbookreview.net

The title of this immediately suggests a not-too-in-depth introduction to a medium you may not have come across before. This is entirely appropriate as the process requires very little equipment (the introduction suggests just three items) and is therefore ideal for the beginner who maybe just wants to dip a toe into the water.

There is an extensive section on techniques, with preparation, application, use of colour and suggestions for suitable grounds and the use of stamps and stencils. Much of this may sound obvious, but this is a book for those with little or no experience in the field of art and is intelligently and lightly handled, making nothing ever a chore.

The project section is really more of a collection of ideas and suggestions, from fabrics to ceramics and wall art. Yes, you could probably work this out for yourself, but I think weve established that you are a complete beginner and welcoming of simple ideas. With nothing too complicated or onerous, you can be certain of worthwhile results quite quickly.

I was prepared to damn this with faint praise, but Ive landed up liking it a lot. The authors dont just know their stuff, they know their audience too.

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Publishers Weekly

Ickler and Klink debut with a wonderful introduction to gelli printing, which in its simplest form involves pressing paper or fabric onto a gelatin plate covered in wet acrylic paint. The authors outline many variations on the process, suggesting that readers might create texture by marking up the painted plate with tools or utensils, or that they might place seedheads on the gelli before printing to make silhouettes of the plants. The magazine resist technique is particularly impressive and entails pressing a glossy page onto a painted plate, which retains the image, and then printing the result. Other strategies include using stamps to absorb paint on gelli plates, which produces a relief of the stamps image on the final print, and generating a grunge effect by placing stenciled letters on a painted plate and then covering them with another color before printing, leaving behind hazy impressions of the letters. The bounty of techniques showcases the mediums many possibilities, though the projects offer more inspiration than guidance. For instance, the authors show how they used cutout block letters to adorn the word bag onto fabric, but give only a rudimentary description of how they transformed that fabric into a drawstring backpack. Still, this will get crafters creative juices flowing.