Gelatin Plate Tests continued

I made a couple of more homemade gelatin plates. One was just gelatin in water while the other was gelatin in 50% water/50% glycerine. I decided to compare the results to what I get with my gelli plate from http://www.gelliarts.com.

The photo below has the results of a quick test run(just grabbing some paint colours). The top row is the 50/50 plate, the middle row is the gelli-plate and the bottom row is the water/gelatin plate. I found that the gelatin only plate needed to be primed a few times to get the paint texture right(the paint became very watery the first few times), while the glycerin plate was good to go…

All three plates worked fine, but since I started with the purchased gelli-plate, I am more comfortable with it. This plate is very firm and I can press hard to get good details of the leaves as masks. I found that the 2 homemade plates were a bit soft. Maybe I just need to add more gelatin or invest in  a special gelatin for monoprinting that makes a firmer plate than using Knox food grade gelatin(who would have guessed there was such a product???). My second favorite plate was the 50/50 plate which is why there are a few extra prints in the top row….I couldn’t resist playing with it.  It was slightly firmer than the gelatin/water only plate.

So, bottom line:  all 3 types of plates will be good to use in my mom’s class. Now I just have to make about 6 more…I will make 50/50 plates until I run out of glycerine.

I am also going to make an extra water/gelatin only plate and let it sit at RT to see if it goes mouldy and if so, can I get the cool texture effects?