Zentangle® and Gelli™ printing with foam stamps

Many of us are hooked on Gelli monoprinting. Creating colorful prints without a printing press “is taking the art and craft world by storm“.

Monoprinting with a Gelli plate is another very addictive creative outlet using simple supplies. It’s totally carefree fun, “playing with paint, color, texture, and moving at a fast pace.” In no time flat you collect a colorful stack of your very own prints. Playing with “found textures” for your prints is almost as fun as discovering a tangle in your surroundings.

If you’re wondering what can be done with them, “Many monoprints are simply good beginnings for a vast array of projects. It’s great fun to work back into prints with various media, layer over them, journal on them, or tear them up and use the snippets for collage.” Or make greeting cards …

This video tutorial from Gelli co-founder Joan Bess demonstrates how to print greeting cards and matching envelopes using simple foam sheets to create printing plate stamps.

Just imagine what stunning Zentangle-inspired designs we can make using our favorite tangles to create the foam stamps used in this cardmaking tutorial.

The demo uses purchased foam printing plates but if you have styrofoam picnic plates or even clean foam takeout containers or vegetable or meat trays from the supermarket you can make great foam stamps from those recycled supplies too.

Materials used:

1. 5″x7″ Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate
2. Strathmore Printmaking Cards – Package of 75 Cards and Envelopes AND Gelli Arts Printing Plate
3. Pebeo Studio Acrylics
4. Amsterdam Standard Series Acrylic Paint
5. Speedball 4″ Pop-In Soft Rubber Brayer
6. Inovart ‘Presto’ Foam Printing Plates – “It cuts easily with scissors or a craft knife—and drawing into it with a pen, pencil, stylus or other pointed tool gives you endless design opportunities!”
7. Gelli Plate Printing, by Joan Bess [I love this book! The italicized quotes above are from the Introduction.]

If you’re like me and enjoy reading the instructions, the step-by-step tutorial is here on the Gelli Arts blog. The blog includes excellent tips that aren’t in the video. (Please note that the giveaway mentioned on that page is now closed.)

As a little background on these great gel printing plates, Joan and her partner Lou Ann Gleason created the Gelli plates about four years ago, as she describes:

I love all kinds of printmaking methods, gelatin printing most of all. But it made me crazy when I didn’t have a plate ready. Or my plate fell apart at the wrong time. Or was damp with humidity and turned mushy. And no room in the refrigerator to keep it fresh. Ugh! Too many negatives getting in the way of the creative process! Know what I mean?

So I started thinking about a printing plate with the look and feel of gelatin, that would always be ready for printing. It had to be easy to use, easy to clean, store at room temperature, and of course, be totally non-toxic.

The Gelli printing plate is the result of their brainstorming and the rest, as they say, is history. If you visit their blog, be sure to check out the archives as there are many excellent tutorials with lots of creative ideas for making and using your Gelli art for other projects.

Related Links

1. Looking for tangles by Artist or Type? For details visit the ABOUT > HOW TO FIND TANGLES BY ARTIST OR TYPE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site.
2. What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
3. Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
4. How to use the site — an excellent free video tutorial showing how to use the site as well as pointing out lots of useful features you might have missed.
5. Linda's List of Zentangle-Original Patterns — here is the complete list of original tangles (aka "official tangles") created and introduced by founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, including those not published online. If you are new to the Zentangle Method I highly recommend learning a few of the published Zentangle classics first.
6. "A Zentangle has no up or down and is not a picture of something, so you have no worries about whether you can draw a hand, or a duck. You always succeed in creating a Zentangle." Patterns that are drawings of a recognizable naturalistic or actual object, figure, or scene, are not tangles. A pattern is not always a tangle — here's what makes a tangle. TIP: tangles never start with pencil planning.
   • Un motif n’est pas toujours un tangle — Qu’est-ce qu’un tangle ?
   • Un diseño no es siempre un tangle — ¿Qué es un tangle?
7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
8. For lots of great FREE tutorials on TanglePatterns, click on the TUTORIALS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page.
9. Strings! Have we got STRINGS! Click on the STRINGS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page for 250 different (free) Zentangle-starters. More than enough for any lifetime!
10. Never miss a tangle! FREE eMAIL NEWSLETTER - visit the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site and sign up to get notices delivered free to your inbox.
11. If you have questions about the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab on the top menu bar of any page on the site for COMPLETE details!

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