What are Gelatos?

Make mixed media art with Gelatos!

For years, Gelatos have been a staple art material of our Creative Studio brand favored primarily by artists who enjoy creating mixed media art. Despite their popularity, the question remains; what even are Gelatos? Though their appearance resembles that of a gel stick or crayon, Gelatos are a multipurpose art material unlike any other. Once you discover the different contents and techniques that make Gelatos unique, your art can be changed forever.

What do you get when you mix pigment, wax, and oil? You get a pigment stick of creamy soft texture also known as Gelatos. Gelatos are acid-free, odorless, and water-soluble. They can be used by themselves or combined with water through a series of techniques to create a watercolor medium.

Gelatos quality pigment is resistant to fading under normal lighting conditions and is compatible with most other acrylic mediums. The easy twist up design of Gelatos makes them easy to maintain and store and their solid opaque color is perfect to cover large surfaces.

Gelatos can be used on paper, cloth, canvas, wood, and fabric. We recommend using a thicker paper such as watercolor paper and using a sealant when working with fabric. Gelatos are also great to use when journaling in your books, notebooks, or bibles, and their vibrant colors look great against dark colored surfaces. With such versatility, it can be hard to know where to start with your Gelatos. Here you can find a handful of techniques to gain a better understanding of this medium. 

Blending Gelatos is a great technique to add color and dimension to your work. Combine colors together to create new colors and blend multiple colors together with your fingertips, a cotton swab, water, or a blending tool. Another technique to try on your Gelatos is edging. With the edging technique, create a distressed or grunge effect by drawing color along the edge of your paper then blend to fade color inward.

Transform your Gelatos into beautiful watercolors with different watercolor techniques. At a basic watercolor level, create your art with your Gelatos then create a watercolor effect with tools such as a water brush, cloth, or baby wipe over your fingertip to spread and blend the color.

Add a spray bottle to your list of tools and try our spritzing and dripping techniques. Spritzing is when you spray your surface with water, then apply your Gelatos over the wet paper, or vice versa. Use a paintbrush to blend and move the color around. The dripping technique is when you apply your Gelatos to one side of your page and use your misting bottles to wet the surface. Tilt your work and let the color drop down the page.

Lastly, dissolve Gelatos into watercolors using warm to hot water and use the back of a spatula to smash pigment fragments and mix until smooth. Add more water to lighten the color, extend the pigment further, and increase the blend ability.  

Gelatos are available in 80 different colors and can be purchased individually or in a series of gift sets. Gelatos gift sets include Gift Set I, Gift Set II, Translucents, Metallics, Iridescents I and Iridescents II, Pastels and Brights. Both the Metallics and Iridecents sets provide a shimmer affect; however, Iridescents give off a multicolor shimmer to them where as Metallics are one color. Other sets that include Gelatos are Abstract Art, Creating with Gelatos, Intro to Watercolor with Gelatos, and Bible Journaling.

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Gelatos Gift Set II	Gelatos Gift Set I

or shop the entire collection, here!