Playing with Alcohol Inks & Stencils & Gelli Plate

Lindsey (doodlings_cards) with a tutorial for using alcohol inks and stencils on a Gelli Plate. I’ve used one of the new release stencils Ornament 1. It’s such a great way to create amazing backgrounds for your card making, art journaling or all other papercrafts.

It is preferable to use colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel, otherwise when they mix together you get muddy brown colours! Here, I chose pink, red, orange and yellow.

I like to brayer a thin layer of white acrylic paint on my Gelli plate first – but it’s personal preference.
Once the paint is dry, push the stencil down so it is in contact with the Gelli plate – otherwise the alcohol inks can seep underneath and you won’t get a clear pattern.
Then add droplets of alcohol inks to fill in the gaps in the stencil. Here’s pictures using stencil Ornament 1

When you are happy with your design, carefully peel off the stencil and quickly put it face down on a piece of paper to take a print of the alcohol inks whilst still wet.
PS – alcohol inks do stain your stencils 😮 But worry not, they clean up quite nicely with acetone/nail varnish remover!

Alcohol inks dry pretty fast. When the inks are dry on the Gelli Plate, brayer on a thin layer of acrylic ink – I used white to keep the colours vibrant.

Don’t let the paint dry! Pull a print off the Gelli Plate. This first print is always the “busiest” with lots of detail.

Invariably the first print pull leaves behind areas of paint on the Gelli Plate. That’s where it gets interesting! Brayer over a layer of acrylic paint (don’t let it dry) and pull a “ghost” print.

You can keep going, adding more layers to your Gelli Plate and pulling more prints to try and “clean” the Gel Plate of all ink and paint. It does get quite addictive!

Personally, I like to do some simple, monocolour prints so that I have several complementary prints to work with.
The choice is yours. Have fun!

I hope I’ve inspired you to have a play with alcohol inks with your stencils if you’ve not tried them before 😊

Lindsey x
Instagram @doodlings_cards

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