Tools I Love to Use When I Gelatin Print

I have been gelatin printing for more than a decade!  I taught my first online gelatin printing class back in 2013.  And I released *THE* gelatin printing class to beat all other gelatin printing classes in 2021: A Year of Gelatin Printing (and Bookbinding).  Seriously, it's epic. With more than 200 videos it's everything you ever wanted to know about gelatin printing plus some other stuff.

Over time, my process has changed slightly and the tools I use have altered a bit.  At the moment, here are the tools that I use when I make gelatin prints:

Gelatin Plate. 

I don't have a brand preference.  I use both Gelli Arts and Gel Press plates.  I bought a Speedball plate a while ago, but I never opened the package.  (I should probably give it a try!)  My current favorite size is 12x14, but I'll confess to having a dozen plates in different sizes.  You absolutely can make your own plate.  But, I prefer the ease of the store bought versions.

Speedball Rubber Brayers. 

I do use different sizes, depending on what I'm doing and the size of the plate I'm working with.  If you've ever wondered how to clean your brayer when it's covered in dry paint, I've got you covered:

I probably need to make an updated video since I now know you can mix the Murphy's Oil Soap with water and it does just as good a job!  It will also clean brushes that have dried acrylic paint on them.

Speedball Baren. 

When I'm pulling a lot of prints or using thick materials to print, the baren saves my hands.  I use it to push down the paper onto the plate.  You can see it at work in this video:

Deli Paper. 

I go through sheets and sheets of deli paper during a printing session.  I use the paper to clean my brayer and the gelatin plate.  After the deli paper is dry, I use it in my art projects.

Sulphite Paper.

A friend gave me a big ream of sulphite paper and I love the feel of it.  It works well for finished prints (like the one above) and you can coax the paper into collage if you use soft gel medium instead of matte medium.

Cardstock and Printer Paper. 

Nothing fancy around here.  I use a ton of regular white cardstock and plain old copy paper for my prints.  And to make stencils!  Speaking of which....

Stencils and Masks. 

Some of them are handmade.  Some of them are Balzer Designs stencils and masks from The Crafter's Workshop.  When I hand cut stencils, I usually just use paper -- everything from copy paper to file folders is fair game around here.  And, of course, I make a lot of stencils with my ScanNCut.

Acrylic Paint. 

I use Liquitex Basics, Blick Studio acrylics, and Golden Fluid Acrylics a lot.  I sometimes use Golden OPEN Acrylics for particular kinds of prints.  Even though there are many many different mediums that work on the gelatin plate, I tend to stick to acrylic paint 99% of the time.

Paint Combs.

You can buy paint combs or you can make them yourself!  They're lots of fun to use and make gorgeous papers!

There are a few other tools that I like to use for print registration, but that gets a bit long to explain.

I hope you found all of this information helpful!  If you want to learn about the basics of Gelatin Printing, I do have an online class all about it.

Thanks for stopping by!