I'm really excited about my new 4" and 6" gelli plates--I just had to show everyone how they work! I consider myself a newbie when it comes to the Gelli Plate, but I'm getting better, and the only way to learn is to do---you can watch countless videos and see LOTS of instructions on the internet, but it's not the same--the more you play with the gelli plate, the more you find out all of the different techniques that you can do with it, but again there is a small learning curve. So when I received my round plates a few days ago, I just started playing and playing and playing and..........and I'll tell you what really helped me was the Gelli Arts video tutorial that's up on their blog right now--beside the fact that the tutorial is very informative, you'll also want to go there because they're having an awesome giveaway which ends later on today. I'll show you a little of what I learned from it. As their tutorial shows, you can use these plates as a stamp, which I REALLY loved. For the 6 inch plate, I found this acrylic box frame--which is actually a picture frame--in other words--anything clear and hard (plastic, glass, mounting stamp block, etc)--as long as you can see through it and the gelli plate adheres to it well. You can see the frame here, which works great for the 6" plate AND the 4" one as well. I didn't have anything smaller, so I just used the larger frame for the 4" one--makes no difference. And you can also see my tools of the trade (not pictured--a brayer---a necessity for the plates--makes it a lot easier) My favorite paints to use for the gelli plates--Liquitex basics and craft paint--inexpensive, but they work great! And stencils, stencils, and more stencils--but they're only the tip of the iceberg--so many other texturizing tools you can use to get really neat effects. So the first thing you do is apply the paint with a brayer to the plate after it's adhered to the mount (acrylic box frame) --just as you would on a regular gelli plate. I found that when I made the circles, I liked the more distressed look. So what I did, was after I brayered the paint on, I bunched up a dry paper towel and blotted up some of the paint on the plate, and then I used it just like a stamp on a large piece of 140lb watercolor paper. You get more of a mottled look (which adds a little more depth) as opposed to the solid color--this is my preference--there's no rules to this--just do what makes you smile. Next step is laying the stencil over the print-- then apply the paint to the plate once again with a contrasting color, and again, I did the same thing with the paper towel (blotting up some of the paint)--then stamp over the existing print--that's what's great about the clear mount you can see exactly where to place the gelli plate. As far as keeping the plate clean between printing--it's just like the regular gelli plate--your preference--clean it every time or not--it depends on the look that you're going for. And I just kept the plate on the acrylic mount the entire time I made the prints--I just kept wiping away the extra paint as I went--very easy clean up. ---really liking that distressed look, and I also like the fact that I didn't get a perfect imprint of the stencil. And if you look to the bottom right-hand corner of it--that's my ghost print from the plate--the negative side? I'm not sure if it's the negative side or not-it's just the plate with the stencil design already on it without the stencil--I think you know what I mean--right?? Here's a better pic of it-- And from there I just kept going--randomly 'stamping' the 6 and 4 inch plates all over the paper-- I didn't do this in one shot--there was a lot of trial and error experimenting, until I started to feel comfortable with what I was doing. By this time, I knew what kind of art that I was going to make with all of my print playing, so I decided to 'finish' off this page. I could have left it as is, but I just can't seem to leave that white space alone-- I love the way this came out--I could have left it this way and put it in a frame just the way it was, but my real love is paper collage, and this was my plan. I also had a 2nd piece of watercolor paper that I used for my ghost prints, and I added just a little more to that one also-- A little more subtle--I like this one too. The only thing I added were the flowery star-bursts, and here's how I did those-- I took my stencil sheet and stamped it with the 4" plate that I applied paint to in random spots all over the paper--easier and faster than actually using a stencil brush. I really recommend going over to the Gelli Arts blog and watching the video--it's a lot easier to see than to explain. Okay, so here are my papers-- And yes, there are some cut-up circles that I made with the 4" plate--I have a plan, and in my next post you'll see what it is.