PAST: I have loved using a gelli plate to create one-of-a-kind prints. From youtube videos by artists, I’ve learned different ways to use a gelli plate and, through trial & error, I’ve found many ways to use the prints. Primarily, my gelli prints were bold colors with uncontrolled patterns. I cut and ripped them, layered them, painted over parts of them. But I haven’t been doing much with them since January when I made the Chunky Monkey series. Image below is the monkey named "Cora."

QUESTION: Would Rachel Davis’s “Botanical Gelli” bring new ideas and new energy for my gelli plate? Would the prints fit into the quieter art that I’m compelled to make today?

ANSWER: Oh, most definitely, YES! First, I have to mention that I took a 12-week online class with Rachel Davis in 2021. She’s a psychologist (now retired) who helps creatives work through ideas related to art-making. Since retiring, she has pivoted full-time into being an artist herself. Taking instruction from Rachel felt both familiar (her voice, her insights, her encouragement to trust your instincts) and new. How new? She uses the gelli plate to capture 3-D elements from flowers, grasses, branches, etc. Mind blown. The trick is that the gelli plate lays OVER the arrangement you’ve created on the table (vs the gelli plate being on the table and things laying over it). Instead of carefully and evenly applying pressure, Rachel demonstrates “massaging” and really “digging in” with your fingers to trace around stems or cup the head of a cone flower, for example. When you take all the possibilities with these techniques and then cross them with color choices and paper choices? BIG FUN.

Once the papers had dried, then I could start moving things around to see what caught my eye. What worked together, what accented well… composition ideas hit.

In the end, after making some large pieces, I went back into the leftover scraps and cut strips. Soon I was playing with stripes & that’s where I stayed. Soooooo many stripes of colors with botanical markings. 

FUTURE: I’ll be returning to this again and again and I’m not sure that I’ll stay limited to botanicals. Why not vegetables? Or a toy truck? Or how about my hand? Whatever the gelli plate can form around, I can make a print. What a great new technique for my bag of studio tricks! Thanks Rachel Davis! (on IG: RachelDavisArt.bayarea)