The Great Gelatin Print Experiment: Part 1

About a month ago, I made a plate of gelatin according to the directions in Rayna Gillman's book, Create Your Own Handprinted Cloth. Several of the pieces I printed have been used in fabric collages. Last week I decided I wanted to experiment with using gelatin prints in art cloth for my Creating your own Stamps and Stencils for Art Cloth class at AZ Art Supply in Tucson. (BTW ART CLOTH is cloth TRANSFORMED by adding or subtracting color, line, shape, texture, value, or fiber to CREATE a compelling surface.)

Therefore, I made another gelatin plate in a large foil cake pan, ran a knife along its edges, and turned it upside down, and pounded it to come out of the cake pan. WRONG!!!!! I was supposed to lift it out. Instead of one big sheet of gelatin, I had one medium piece and a lot of smaller, irregularly shaped ones. Thus, began the great gelatin experiment. I decided to square up the largest pieces so it resembled a rectangle. I did this with a paring knife that I keep in my studio. I used this gelatin plate and 5 or 6 of the other gelatin pieces for art cloth #1 and I only used the smaller gelatin plates for art cloth #2.

Art Cloth #1, Steps 1 - 3

• Turquoise gelatin prints
• Smaller rust gelatin prints
• Rust prints using eraser stamps

Art Cloth #1, Steps 4-5

• Blue-violet and violet monoprints using large gelatin plate
• Blue-violet and blue spiral prints using eraser stamps

Art Cloth #1, Step 6

• Applied light mauve glaze

Art Cloth #1, Step 7

• Metallic copper spiral prints using weatherstrip stamp