These are prints from my first ever gelatin printing class.  They are from my second art class/workshop after a 32 year gap from my art class freshman year in college.  One of my goals for 2014 is to say “Yes!” to making art; specifically to say “Yes!” to the process and joy of creating regardless of the products that I may produce.

This class was a lot of fun – so much so that I ordered myself some printing ink and a new brayer when I got home so I can experiment with it some more.  (I dug up my old brayer in the cellar and found it covered with long dried acrylic paint from a stenciling project.  Ughhh!)

So what is gelatin printing?  It is a type of mono-printing where you lay down color with a brayer on a sheet of gelatin (yes it can be the kind you eat!) then you make patterns by removing ink in any manner of ways then lay your paper on the gelatin and smooth it with your hands to pick up the color.  The process gets interesting as you add layers of ink to your work.   I’m excited to play with this again at home (my ink came in the mail today!) and perhaps do some pieces where I add some charcoal or pastel details once the ink has dried.

flying

birch trees

blue lace

Here’s an interesting video showing the basics of gelatin print-making.  A simple Google search for gelatin print images yields a beautiful array of other examples.