The gelatine Plate.

 I made up my old gelatine plate a long time ago, maybe more than a year ago, so it wasn't surprising that it started to become less than a good printing surface. Although these signs of mould were on the underneath of the plate, it wasn't long before the upper surface started to go dark brown and to be too dry to use for gelatine prints.

 I just left it in the tin while I went on to something else, and it eventually dried out completely, resulting in this plate of hard brittle gelatine with the remnants of pain still in it.

 I'm sure that I could have broken it up, added water and warmed to useable consistency again, but rather than waste time, I made up a lovely new plate instead.

Here is the new plate poured into the old tin that I scrubbed up for re-use. There are a couple of pin prick faults in it, but I'm sure that it'll be fine for the sorts of printed backgrounds that I want to make. At 21 cm x 30 cm it's a lot bigger than the commercial Gel plates, that is if you don't want to spend a fortune on a large plate..