Gelatin Prints

These are four ink prints I made using a variety of natural and man made materials such as leaves, feathers, shells, dried glue, sticks, cotton, etc. The assignment for this project was to experiment with gelatin printing, to choose the four best prints and to manipulate one of them using another media.

To make these prints I used a slab of congealed gelatin over which I used a breyer to roll a thin layer of ink. I then pressed the materials mentioned previously into the ink and put a piece of paper over the object and the gelatin to create a negative. After that I removed the object and pressed another piece of paper against the gelatin to create a detailed print from what was left of the ink. Through trial and error with different materials that created different textures and different amounts of ink, I created many gelatin prints. By putting multiple objects on the slab at once I could make collages as seen in the prints above. In the hand manipulated print I used graphite pencils to "extend" the images of the print that I made with the gelatin.

I chose the objects shown for my prints because through copious printmaking I found these to have the most interesting and detailed textures expressed in the prints. Also I thought that these four prints had the best spacial compositions which was part of the reason I chose them. I think the prints could more detailed had there not been a crease on the right side of my gelatin slab. The blank space is apparent on the left of most of my prints, but doesn't seem to stick out against the business and complexity of the collages so overall they came out well.