‘Hakea Leaves’ is a small, simple monoprint I created several years ago. I was learning how to do monoprints on a gel press. It was approximately 15 cm (6 inches) square. The leaves were Pincushion Hakea leaves, which have wonderful parallel veins.

Building the Image

Using acrylic paint, I painted the leaves and pressed them on the plate. I don’t clean my gel plates, which enables a layered effect of colours in the foreground and background. I painted the leaves directly with greens and reds. To build up layers I pulled several prints, which each left paint on the plate. I love the way the paint layers build up into a wonderful, mottled effect. Look for faint outlines of the leaves on previous layers. These are covered by blue and white.

What To Do with The Prints?

As a small, simple monoprint, it’s possible to frame it or put it into an album of your work. I scanned mine and put it up on Redbubble. If the scan is a good resolution and the colours are accurately captured, the print is surprisingly versatile.

My scan settings were 300 dpi, with the final image coming out at 6500 pixels square. This was large enough to use for some, but not all, Redbubble products. In particular, I love the coasters with the ‘Hakea Leaves’ print. I have these in my studio, and many people comment on them.

In my home I have ‘Hakea Leaves’ as a bath mat, as well as a cushion. It’s versatile as home decor and stationery.

The scanned size I used is not large enough to use for rugs, tapestries and bedding. However, it would be possible to scan it at a higher resolution. I just decided not to do this.

Things to Try

Starting with leaves from your garden is prefect way of experimenting with layout and design. Try using differently sized and shaped leaves. Work up from there with layers and placement of the leaves on the gel plate. I don’t think there is a good substitute for trial and error. Each time you pull a print, you will learn something.

If you don’t know the process for gel printing, search using the term ‘botanical gel printing’ on YouTube. There are many good videos of different techniques.

Keep an eye on my posts for 100 Days of Art. I will be posting more examples of gel plate monoprints in future posts.