Hi! Welcome to the Gelli Arts® blog, it’s Birgit here today with a fun new project with endless possibilities, creating beautiful reliefs using toilet paper or paper towel tubes.
This is a really easy project with stunning result so I hope you’ll join me and give this a try!
To create the reliefs you start by flattening the tubes, then cut them into strips of the same width. You connect them together in any place you like, creating fun designs.
You can also fold the tube strips to create smaller, double shapes. Or cut them in half and close the open ends to create smaller single shapes.
Vary with the placement of the smaller shapes, inside or outside of the bigger shapes. You can work symmetrical but don’t have to. Or connect several designs together to create a bigger, repeating, relief.
Just use your imagination and move the shapes around to see how it looks before glueing them together.
Note: make sure to assemble the reliefs on a flat surface so all the strips are lined up at the bottom. It’s no problem if the strips are not the same height as long as one side is flat and even to make sure all the lines will touch the plate.
When you are satisfied with your design and you made sure all of the glue is dry (you don’t want the reliefs to fall apart while printing) you can roll out a even and thin layer of acrylic paint on your Gelli Arts® gel printing plate.
Carefully place the relief on top and press it down. Be careful and try not to move the relief in the paint.
Then remove the relief and let the paint dry before adding a pick up layer of acrylic paint. Place the paper on top and rub firmly. I prefer to leave the paper on the plate until everything is dry to make sure all the paint comes off.
Now you have some beautiful patterned prints that can be used for instance as a base for cards or an art journal page, or maybe you want to print even more layers on top. But you can also use paint markers to add lines and dots and turn these prints into lovely little pieces of art that are ready to frame.
As I said, the possibilities are endless 🙂
I hope you enjoyed this project and we would love to see what you create, so please share and don’t forget to tag @gelliarts and use #gelliarts so we can find your posts!
Happy printing and have a lovely day! Make it colorful 🌈 🩷
Birgit
Materials:
5”x7” Gelli Arts® gel printing plate
Brayer (I use a wide lino roller for easy blending)
Toilet paper or paper towel tubes
Acrylic paint (I used Amsterdam, Liquitex and Ara)
White card (200 gr. copier paper)
Acrylic paint markers (I used Posca and Molotov)
Adhesive like Tacky Glue
Pencil
Scissors
Ruler
General copier paper to clean off your brayer
Other/Optional:
Gelli Arts Mini Placement Tool
Find us:
FOLLOW US:
