Gelli™ Printing On-the-Go!

For those of you taking art supplies with you on-the-go, the small Gelli plates are essentials to pack in your art bag! Monoprinting beyond the studio has never been easier! Watch this video to see some fun portable printing supplies in action!

The list of 'must-have' supplies to pack in your travel bag are pretty individual. I'll show you what I pack in my travel art bag. Okay, maybe 'cram' is a more accurate word! But as you'll see, this bag provides for more than just monoprinting. Supplies for art journaling, collage, card making, stamping, doodling, and watercoloring are all included—for fun ways to work with Gelli prints!

The bag is the Voyager 15" Canvas Rigger Bag from Harbor Freight. This sturdy bag has a spacious interior and convenient pockets on the outside, so it holds a load of stuff! The strong handles make it manageable to carry—even when you load it up!

The bag is a blank canvas just waiting for your creative decorative inspiration! So have at it and make it your own!!

Here's how to decorate a bag like this one:

1.     Cut pieces of black felt to cover each of the outside pockets (only for the shorter pockets—there are two levels of pockets).

2.     Cut a piece of Gelli-printed fabric slightly smaller than each piece of black felt.

3.     Fuse each printed fabric piece to a piece of felt with fusible webbing, like Wonder-Under.

4.     If desired, work further on the printed fabric with colored pencils, fabric pens and paint markers.

5.     Apply red-liner sticky tape to the back of each felt piece. Remove the red liner and press each felt/fabric piece firmly into place on the canvas bag. If you prefer, the pieces can be glued in place with an adhesive, like tacky glue.

6.   If desired, you can paint the blank canvas bag before adhering the felt/fabric pieces.

Here's what's packed in the bag!!!

Gelli™ Plates— The 3"x5" and 5"x7" fit easily into a travel art bag!

Acrylic paint — DecoArt Media Acrylics are convenient to pack — a little paint goes a long way!

Paper — Strathmore has fabulous papers just right for a variety of On-The-Go printing!

Brayer — it's a 4" Speedball Soft Rubber Pop-In Brayer for my travel art bag!

For mounting the Gelli plates to use as stamps—an Inkadinkadoo Clear Extra Large Block works well for the 3"x5" plate. And the 5"x7" Gelli plate fits nicely on a 5"x7" acrylic box frame!

The Crafter's Workshop small masks!!! TCW's Balzer Bits and Ronda's Fragments— designed by our Gelli friends, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Ronda Palazzari — are so perfect for printing with our small Gelli plates! And so easy to pack!

Derwent Inktense Pencils and Caran d'Ache NeoColor II crayons are both water-soluble. Great for adding more color and detail to your dry prints! And don't forget a pencil sharpener!

A Niji Waterbrush is an essential in any travel art bag! And Niji Pearlescent Watercolors add a sparkling touch to any print! Use the Waterbrush to blend colors and create washes with the Inktense Pencils and NeoColorII Crayons, too! A Ranger Mini Mister can come in handy when you want a spritz of water!

A set of fine point Micron Pens is another essential. Sharpie Water-based Metallic Extra Fine pens are a personal favorite for adding selective metallic details to almost any print!

For more doodling options, include Montana Acrylic Paint Markers! They're totally compatible with acrylic paint and great for working back into prints. Black and white are good for starters. And who doesn't love a Uni-Ball Signo White pen?!! A must-have, right?!! I think so!

Maybe alphabet stamps aren't on everyone's list, but they're such FUN! So toss in a set with a Ranger Archival Ink Black stamp pad and add some words to your prints, cards and journal pages!

The list goes on and on… a few more fun and handy things to pack in your art travel bag include plastic needlepoint canvas shapes and a piece of punchinella. They hardly take up any room! Rubbing plates are also great texture tools that are easy to pack!

Catalyst Contours are sized just right for travel—small and light. Roylco Paint Scrapers offer several more combing patterns and their flat shape makes them super handy to pack and easy to use!

For making collages with your printed papers, a few basics like a Cutter Bee Scissors with Safety Cover and UHU Glue Stick are great travel supplies! And throw in a few rolls of washi tape for the fun of it!

And let's not forget to include some Purell Hand Sanitizer and Wipes for cleaning things up!

There you have it! Enough cool supplies to keep you in Printmaking nirvana On-The-Go!!!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

Ready for our HUGE Holiday Giveaway?!!!

We're stuffing ALL of these amazing supplies into a canvas bag for our most STUPENDOUS GIVEAWAY EVER!!! A Holiday Travel Art Bag Giveaway!!!

• 1-  5˝x7˝ Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate
• 1-  3˝x5˝ Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate
• 1-  Harbor Freight Voyager 15˝ Canvas Riggers Bag
• 1-  Harbor Freight Vogager 15" Canvas Riggers Bag decorated by Joan Bess!
• 1 - Strathmore Mixed Media Cards (Set of 10 - Full Size)
• 1-  Strathmore 5˝x7˝ Printmaking Paper - Series 400 (20 Sheets - Heavyweight)
• 1-  Strathmore Ready Cut Watercolor Paper - Series 500 (25 Sheets—140 lb. Hot    Press)
• 1-  Strathmore Mixed Media Art Journal - Series 500 (64 pages - 5.5˝x8˝ - 90 lb.)
• 1-  Strathmore Artist Trading Cards - Bristol (20 Cards - 100 lb. Vellum Surface)
• 12-  DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - 1 fl. oz. bottles
• 11-  The Crafter’s Workshop Stencil/Masks - Balzer Bits & Ronda’s Fragments
• 1-  4"Speedball Soft Rubber Pop-In Brayer
• 1-  Yasutomo Niji Waterbrush - Medium (12mm)
• 1-  Yasutomo Niji Pearlescent Watercolors - Set of 16 Colors
• 1-  Derwent Inktense Pencils - Set of 12 Ink Pencils
• 1-  Carand’Ache NeoColor II - Set of 10 Watersoluble Crayons
• 1-  Sakura Micron Pens - Set of 3 Fine Point (Black - 01, 03, 05)
• 1-  Sharpie Metallic Water-based Paint Markers- Set of 3 Extra Fine
• 2 - Montana Acrylic Paint Markers - Fine
• 1-  Uni-Ball Signo White Pen
• 1-  Faber-Castell Trio Sharpening Box GRIP (Pencil Sharpener)
• 1-  Recollections Alphabet Stamp Set (wood mounts)
• 1-  Recollections Crafting Tape - 2 Rolls
• 1-  Ranger Archival Ink Stamp Pad - (Black)
• 1-  Ranger Mini Mister
• 1-  Inkadinkadoo - Clear Extra-Large Block (use as stamp mount for 3”x5” Gelli Plate)
• 1-  Studio Decor (Michael’s) 5˝x7˝ Acrylic Box Frame  (use as stamp mount for 5˝x7˝ Gelli Plate)
• 1-  Tape Works Washi Tape - 1 Roll
• 2-  Catalyst Contour Combs
• 1-  Roylco Paint Scrapers - Set of 4
• 2-  Cedar Canyon Rubbing Plates
• 1-  EK Tools Cutter Bee Scissors with Safety Cover
• 1-  UHU Glue Stick (Net .74 oz.)
• 1-  Plastic Palette Knife
• 2-  Plastic Needlepoint Canvas Shapes (use as texture tools)
• 1-  Piece of Punchinella (use as texture tool)
• 1-  Purell Hand Sanitizer - 2 fl. oz. bottle
• 1-  Purell Sanitizing Wipes

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

Enter our Spectacular Holiday Travel Art Bag Giveaway below. Check out all the options for entering the random drawing and choose one OR choose all the ways to enter!

Multiple entries allowed!a Rafflecopter giveaway   

A special thanks to our wonderful friends at DecoArt, Strathmore Paper and The Crafter's Workshop for their generous contributions to our Holiday Travel Art Bag Giveaway!!!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Gelli Arts!!!

Happy Printing and Good Luck!!!