Samples of digital printing onto diverse surfaces.

This is a sample library of some of the surfaces I have attempted to print onto...
Things we can easily print onto now:
cheap paper (can give good results when treated with a digital ground)
watercolour paper - various weights
Tyvek
waxed paper
cheap aluminium foil
acetate
brown paper
paper bags
plastic table cloth covering
plastic table cloth covering with applied muslin
skin of acrylic paint
skin of acrylic gel
aluminium sheet
brown paper
acetate with gel medium applied
standard fabrics - silk, organza, hessian, canvas
ironed bubble wrap
plastic bags (various qualities)
screen printer's plastic
dyed fabrics (eg., rust stained silk)
AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING...
1 Rough watercolour paper - Digital ground (DG) gloss clear
2 Calico, raw, not washed - DG gloss clear
3 Tyvek before heat treatment - DG non porous
4 Hessian (quite dark colour hessian) - DG gloss clear (right) DG white mat (left)
5 Cotton mix (rust dyed before printing) - DG clear gloss (left) DG not coated (right)
6 Organza - Where there is detail DG non-porous was used (centre elsewhere ink has spread and blurred)
7 High quality plastic bag - DG non porous (there is also a red rectangle where bag was printed red, and the roller marks can be clearly seen = NOT GOOD, these were later eliminated using plastic wedges under the wheel to lift them off the 'paper' as it fed through)
8 Normal Aluminium kitchen foil, crinkled and rolled prior to printing - DG non-porous
9 Waxed paper, prepared using shibori roll - DG non-porous
10 Rough water colour paper with gloss gel medium prior to printing - DG non-porous
11 Screen printer plastic - DG non-porous (roller marks lift slow drying ink = NOT GOOD! (rollers lifted in later samples as described above, see below)
12 Heavy table cover plastic - DG non-porous
13 Heavy table cover plastic with muslin applied using gloss gel medium before printing - DG non-porous
14 Acrylic paint (white) skin - DG non-porous
15 Bubble wrap thread sandwich - DG non-porous, some areas cleared of non-dried ink after printing
16 Screen printers plastic with muslin applied with gloss gel medium before printing - DG non-porous
17 Acetate sheet - DG non-porous (this surface can be used as a fine skin to apply to other surfaces (see later)
18 Frosted plastic (bag) - DG non-porous (right) no coating on left (ink extremely slow to dry but did dry eventually)

I will add more examples soon...

Digital Ground 1

With an image (taken with my mobile phone ) of the pots at Calgary Airport that I am quite taken with... I printed onto acetate which had been textured with Golden gloss media and then printed on Golden's non-porous ground. Do you think if I mention their name enough I might get some free samples? Now on to stitch.

It snowed!

I think I can feel a series coming on.
Great stimulus for the shibori work and digital printing that I am doing
So frustrating being held up by lack of material and my inability to get technical with the printer. One doesn't mess about with a costly machine like that without concern.

A nice wine.

This piece began in Oman and was put in a box of goodies for  a while.  Thanks to Jan and her Wednesday sewing group it is now finished... I think.

It has nice edges (not shown) and I actually like the piece in a portrait position (not shown).

This isn't a postcard although a small piece it is about 8" square.

Icy river's edge

This item was made in 15 minutes using the embellisher machine.

I am impressed by how the machine allows creation of a textural surface to work into and how the back and front are very different. The back providing a more muted image.

The image reminds me of the edge of a partly frozen river, like the ones we visited at Elbow falls beaver interpretative trail.

Al's Miro

I have included this because Al demonstrates the ability of the young to just do and not consider too deeply consequences in art. So often I find myself turning things over and over and losing the spontaneity . In this piece she showed her natural skills in colour selection and composition

Shibori mushrooms

This is the sample for a piece based on the mushrooms, I am sure there is lots more potential in this felting/shibori idea. I must buy some fabric to work with, I just used a piece I had. It was all a bit closed in with this sample and the funghi need lots more space around them.

Love the ink cap colours that just appeared. And the felted streamers of thread suggesting spores flying off from the toadstools.