Botanical Printmaking on the Gel Plate: Eucalypt Leaf Monotypes

Charlotte Wensley
11 hours ago
3 min read

Abstracting Nature in Print and Paint.

| I've found a new favourite leaf!

Or rather it found me as it arrived in a bunch of flowers as background greenery, but I instantly looked past those and at the gorgeous sprigs of Round Leafed Mallee, which have the most lovely rounded shape and the twigs are almost zig-zag shaped in places, quite unusual. I also confess that I was secretly happy once the bunch generally started to show signs of expiry and I could dismantle the arrangement and pull out the little branches of leaves for printmaking.

I initially had a go with printing the leaves still attached to the stems but they were a bit too lumpy so I removed the leaves and just printed with those.

Close-up of eucalyptus leaves on thin branches against a white background. The leaves are green with visible veins, creating a natural pattern.

| Using a monochrome palette creates beautiful results

I spent several hours printing with contrasting blues - Prussian, Phthalo, turquoise, Payne's Grey, light blue and Unbleached Titanium. Working with a limited colour palette - in this case a range of blues, creates and opportunity to explore strong light/dark contrasts rather than colour contrasts. I often print this way as I find these papers are more useful later on in my mixed media paintings. The colour can be adjusted slightly with glazes if need be.

Art supplies and papers with blue leaf prints scattered on a textured surface. Tubes of paint and rollers add to a creative atmosphere.

| Focusing on Shape

Printing with a limited range of colours also helped me focus on the shape of the leaves, which is really what I was interested in exploring when I started. Creating both graphic prints and ghost prints gave me lots of opportunity to see how the leave shapes interacted with each other. They natural form a most beautiful pattern when placed 'randomly' on the gel plate. (Already this idea has me thinking about applying this to other leaf shapes - note to self!)

This next image is two versions of a graphic print (the first print).

Colorful leaf prints in shades of blue and teal, arranged on a table. Various leaf patterns and textures create an artistic display.

Below is the ghost print obtained by allowing the print leaves in the above image to fully dry out on the plate before applying another thin layer of pale blue paint, applying the paper and waiting for a few minutes for the paint layers to dry before pulling both paint layers together.

Leaves painted in blue acrylic on paper with scattered leaves around. A tube of "Liquitex Basics" acrylic lies to the right on a colorful table.

| Paper for Printmaking

I generally use both standard white copy paper and wet strength tissue paper for gelli printing as they work well collaged into paintings later on. But I save all the precious paper offcuts from prints and have a box full of these strips which are ideal for removing excess paint and gradually the layers of paint build up on these to create unique abstract printed strips.

Patterned art of overlapping leaves on blue background, overlaid with translucent tape. Surrounding are cutout leaf shapes. Abstract setting.

| So many prints!

I kept going for a few hours - I't almost impossible to stop as there is always 'just another print' to be had! And the best part was being left with the actual printed leaves - they have sparked a whole new line of inquiry all by themselves.