Some More Digital Print Playtime

This little frame was made from paper and a napkin that attracted me -

from a meeting I attended last week. It was perfect for this!

My enthusiasm continues unabated for adventures with Golden Digital Grounds. I have made about dozen new prints on silk organza and chiffon; here are just a few from the weekends play. Not all are ready yet as cards or anything - but they will be soon!

This is a print on silk chiffon -

you can see how thin it is - and easy to write on as well .

AS always you can double click on the photos for my clarity.

The image below is printed on bleached Harem Cloth printed

on a thin acrylic base of Golden clear tar gel.

I altered my all time favorite poster (probably because I was there at too young an age, admittedly, and wish I still had the ticket stub!) This was printed on Cotton Voile from Dharmatrading - where I got all of my fabrics

More Magic With Golden Digital Grounds

I've been continuing my playtime with Golden Digital Grounds and am finding them utterly addicting. I keep thinking about new things I want to try making with them. I am also having a fine 'ole time experimenting with using 'skins' & 'no skins'. This is a playground I may not ever want to leave I fear!

"Be Peace" was made by using two coats of Golden Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surfaces on a layer of silk organza. I printed an image of a photo that I had taken some years ago. I hand- lettered the words, layered the organza onto a piece of vintage kimono silk, added a post card back & then sewed around the card. I used a 30 wt thread on this card . My favorite thread for this purpose is Sulky Blendables 12 wt thread. That being said I am going to go on a hunt for something similar weight from my fav companies, Superior Threads & Wonderfil threads. Maybe I just love this specific Sulky thread and that's a good thing too!

One of the interesting things about this method - not using an acrylic skin underneath - is the organza has an almost holographic effect and changes colors depening on the way the light hits it!

These are my next experiments - ready for printing. Top is cotton voile coated with Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a skin of matte medium, the piece in the middle is bleached harem cloth with Digital Gound Matte White on a skin of self leveling gel medium & the bottom piece is silk chiffon coathed in Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a very thin skin of clear tar gel.

Go here for Golden digital ground information.
Go here for Golden acrylic mediums information.

In the photo above you can see how sheer the chiffon will be (front)- and the voile not far behind (on the top) in sheerness. The harem cloth (middle) with white digital ground will be opaque rather than having a transparent quality.

Up close on the cotton voile - double click for up close look

Here (above) you can see chiffon over voile

How thin this skin is with the chiffon!

I have to go and print now! I am also trying some other light fabrics with the Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surface - which has become my favorite of all! Hopefully tomorrow I will have some more experiments to share with you!

Playing With Golden Acrylic Skins & Didigal Grounds

Making three differnt skins on sheet protectors

My play time this week has centered around something I know, without a doubt, I will be doing a lot more of. Using Golden gel mediums as skins for their Digital Grounds. The Digital Grounds are really somewhat of a misnomer - they are enhancers - like pre-treating fabric for printing. I experimented this week with making a very thing skin with gel mediums; I used Golden Clear Tar Gel, Daniel Smith matte medium, Golden Soft Gel and Golden Self-Leveling Gel. After the skin (two coats) were dry I used some silk organza and then coated it with two thin layers of Golden Digital Ground. I used Matte white and, my favorite because it is clear, Golden Digital Ground for non- porous surfaces. I also tried treating the organza with two coats of the Clear Digital ground with no acrylic skin. I like them both for different reasons.

I should mention that I was encouraged in this play by a great on line clas from Creative Workshops - this class is a bargain, taught by Gail Schmidt. Best thing is that it is one of those classes that is ongoing - so you can watch when you want and then pick up where you leave off. later this month I am taking at least one, and hopefully two other classes from them - great offerings in a good format!

Above on the left is organza treated with Digital Ground and no acrylic skin underneath;
on the right is treated organza on a 'skin' of two coats of clear tar gel.

The 'no skin' organza' in the top photo is light as a feather while the 'skin' piece has a plastic feel on the bottom - but it is well disguised on the top and appers to be plain organza - albeit with more of a shine that the piece with no skin underneath.

Below: The print with the skin underneath on top
of a lovely piece of kimono silk from Ah! Kimono
Below: Probably my favorite, a very soft look.
The organza with no skin underneath it on top of another lovely piece of kimono silk.
I think that both effects are desirable and I will be experimenting with a lot more things - different fabrics, differnt printing techniques. I LOVE using these new Golden products!

Experimenting With Golden Silverpoint & Digital Matte White Grounds

Yesterday's mail brought the long back-ordered Golden Silverpoint ground. I had ordered it in a fit of experimentation lust quite awhile ago. DickBlick was out of it and one thing led to another and I forgot it until it arrived. I also had bought some Golden Digital Ground in matte white that I had been wanting to try out - so I tried them at the same time.

I had never heard of Silverpoint - "what the heck is this"" I thought? Ah!Something to to explore! Silver point, it turns out, has a long and noble history in the field of art and drawing. Who knew? There is a wonderful website called silverpoint web that will tell you all you want to know. about this amazing art form. One thing I know is that I have to hustle up some sort of real tool to try this stuff with. My experiements were interesting, but I know that the real thing will be awesome. Golden has a great write up about this new product in their publication "Just Paint", which, if you love to paint and draw, you really do need to check out and subscribe to! Golden makes an amazing array of ground products. I am just beginning to really experiment with some of their gessos and grounds - so you can look for more posts about them in the near future. I am really pretty excited about some of the things I have been playing with - things that I have wanted to try out for some time. Playtime really lifts my spirits - and gets me going! I love to try new things and learn new techniques - it's the gadget girl in me I guess.

The photo below:
I covered some scrap printer paper with some Silverpoint ground and then grabbed the things that were on my desk to try out. The top of the examples have ground and the bottom portion (where you can see I taped) are plain. I simply HAVE to get a real tool for this!

Below: left to right:
an embossing tool that I use for metal ,a paper clip (not reall visible!), a berol Prismacolor pencil, a Lamy Safari fountain pen with a medium nib, a Berol 6B pencil, a Staedtler Triplus marker - very fine nib),a Berol mechanical pencil (left line using just the metal nib and right line using the lead). The embossing tool was nothing special but at least the makes showed up. The colored pencil, ink, pencil, marker and mechanical pencils all worked. The ground made a lovely smooth surface for any sort of medium & encouraged a bit of spread for ink and marker. The pencils just wrote super smoothly. Have I said i need a real tool for trying this?!

Below are some plain copy paper prints I tried:

Left to right: plain copy paper, Golden Digital Ground for inkjet printeres in matte white, Golden Silverpoint ground. Obviously the Siverpoint ground really is not effective for inkjet printing. Perhaps not as obvious is the improvement in the color when using the digital ground. The volors really are more rich and vibrant. Keep in mind this was printed on regular old printer paper and I did not adjust the settings - so that's actually a lot for the ground to achieve with no special adjustments made to photo or printer.

Below is a bit more of a close up of the plain copy on the left and the digital ground on the right. The colors are much better with the ground - so I know there will be more of them in my paint box to try out as soon as I can afford to order them. I hope Blick will have another sale soon so that I can get some more to try!