I’ve been experimenting doing monotypes on a gel plate from Gelli Arts, trying out different inks and paints over the last week or so. I’ve finished for the time being, ending up with Caligo Safe Wash oil-based printing inks. I used Process Yellow, Magenta and Cyan mixed approximately 50:50 with the brand’s Extender for translucency and to make it easier to roll. It gave good coverage over the gel plate, held texture well, printed with vibrant colours and also produced a decent ‘ghost’ (secondary) print.
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- Caligo Safe Wash printing ink
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- Mixing Process colours with Extender
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- The first roll, Process Yellow and Process Magenta
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- Texturing the plate with bubble wrap
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- The first layer printed ….
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- ….and a ‘ghost’ image taken
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- Then on with the Process Cyan and more bubble wrap, adding some ripped paper stencils to mask out areas
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- The final print with excellent coverage and colours ….
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- ….and a reasonable ‘ghost’ image
I’ve tried out 6 different inks / paints, all printed in two layers onto Daler Rowney cartridge paper (90gsm). I think the best for my own professional use are the Caligo Safe Wash oil-based printing ink and the Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint.
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- Caligo Safe Wash printing ink
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- Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint
For teaching, I would be happy to use both the Essdee and the Seawhites of Brighton water-based printing inks. And the other 2 media I used, Winsor & Newton Galeria acrylic paint and Liquitex acrylic inks were both too liquid to give satisfactory results on this brand of gel plate, so I’ll be keeping them for other projects.
