Block printing with gelatin

Today, in our Secret Artists' fiber art group, we had fun making some prints from trays of gelatin. It was a gorgeous day, and we were able to work outside at a big table on the porch of my studio. This is a technique introduced to us by one of our members, Billye, who is a collage artist.

I made up the trays of gelatin ahead of time. The recipe (for each tray) was: dissolve 4 packets of plain Knox gelatin in one cup of water. Add 3 cups boiling water and pour into 11 x 9 or so inch pan. Pat out any bubbles, so the surface is smooth and clear. The mixture will set up in a few hours without being refrigerated. In fact, I don't recommend even trying to put it into the fridge, because the whole thing is very unstable and it sloshes all over your counters, floors, shoes and the inside of the refrigerator. It especially seeks out those little nooks and crannies where you put eggs and things. AFTER it has set up, you can transfer the tray to the fridge for longer term keeping.

OK, so armed with our gelatin trays, the secret artists put some block printing ink on our palettes and loaded up a breyer. We then rolled a thin-ish coat of ink onto the surface of the gelatin.
To make the prints, we placed rubber stamps onto the ink, which lifted up the ink and left the impression of the design we were after. For variety, we also tried pressing lace, paper doilies, and string onto the surface to absorb the ink. One person had a little problem with using a sharp-ish object, and it made a slice into the gelatin.

THEN, we gently patted a piece of fabric onto the surface of the gelatin. You could see the design emerging, like watching a photo come up in a chemical bath. We lifted the fabric up and draped it over a hedge to let it dry. We really came out with some interesting prints.

This was a copper print on black satin. We used cotton, satin and organza for our printing fabrics.

The very cool thing about printing from the gelatin block was that the ink did not ever dry out. To change colors, you could blot up the remnants of your previous color. This is fun and would be easy to do with kids.

I had a blast, even though my head was still pretty stuffy and I was kind of out of it from The Thanksgiving Cold.