How to Make Your Own Gel Plate Print

So this happened …. Officeworks has started selling gel plates and asked me to share my love of the process with some ‘how to’ steps in their latest Noteworthy instore magazine – How to Make Your Own Gel Plate Print.

I am so excited that Officeworks are selling gel plates !! I’ve been watching their art supply collection grow over the past few years. There are some excellent art resources available online and in-store.

I loooove shopping in art supply stores, but I know they can be a little overwhelming or intimidating to people not familiar with the squillions of options available.

I think most people are comfortable walking into an Officeworks store, and now they have the plates, paints, paper and rollers to get printing (along with the rest of their carefully curated collection of art resources). I’m not sure if the gel plates and rollers are available in-store at all locations, so if you’re not in a capital city, you may need to check with your local store to see if they have them, or if you have to order them online.

Check out their online Art & Craft supplies here, and specifically (and my favourite!), their Printmaking supplies here.

They’ve also shared my DIY gel plate recipe, so you can make your own gel plate too!

If you’re new to printing with gel plates, there are loads of in-person and online resources to learn from.

I run in-person gel plate monoprinting workshops from my studio in Maleny, Queensland. And I have 2 online workshops dedicated to the process – Gel Plate Monoprinting and Gel Plate Monoprinting Beyond the Basics. Click any of the image links below for more information.

Gelatin plate printmaking tips

1. Tip 1 – Gel Plate Printing – printing a white silhouette
2. Tip 2 – Gel Plate Printing – printing mountains
3. Tip 3 – Gel Plate Printing – colour and composition

Click here if you would like to read a little about my personal approach to gelatin plate monoprinting.

What can you create with gel plates?

For me, botanicals are my magic ingredient when it comes to printing with gel plates. How I print, though, is the tip of the iceberg of 1,000,001 different ways you can print with these plates. Printing with botanicals is the approach that I teach.

Below are prints created by students in my in-person and online workshops …

And below are a few of my own gel plate monoprints …