I was offered a Gelli Plate by my local art supply store to test out the product and later demonstrate it for their customers. It has been a while since I have used any printmaking techniques and once I started using the Gelli Plate it all came back to me, the excitement of lifting the paper off of the plate to see what had been created, the fact that everything is backwards from how you see it while you are working on the plate! I love how creativity and process come together in such a unique way when I am printing.

The plate is pictured below with a little paint on it, and though it may look like a slab of glass it's actually quite floppy and squishy in nature. This plate gives you the look of monoprint without a press. You simply paint on the Gelli Plate and then you can lay the paper on top and apply pressure or flip the Gelli Plate on top of the paper ( my favourite way) and then apply pressure.

If you are new to printmaking but love experimenting with paint I'd recommend trying one of these Gelli Plates  out. There are three different size plates and a circle ---which I am thrilled about!! 

Below shows the type of effects that you can get by creating layers with the Gelli Plate. You can see that it really captures the brush strokes and offers some ephemeral effects. Definately try it out on different paper to see what kind of effects you can get. 

Be aware that if you use too much water in your paint layer it will bead up on the plate. Also if you apply the paint really thickly it will mush around providing unitended results. However you can play with the beading effect and the mushy effect and get some lovely results too.
Here is a really neat video I sourced when doing some research on how to use this really unique product.

Video source [1]