Digital Mixed Media Fiber Journals

Only one month until my workshop at Hudson River Valley Fiber Workshops in Greenville,  New York. We will create "Digital Mixed Media Fiber Journals" for 5 days and stay at the lovely
Greenville Arms Inn.  One of the marvelous results of working on art for 5 days is the opportunity for fearless creating.  The more you work, the better you get. In a 5 day, retreat situation, magic happens with your art.

The workshop will have a digital element so the participants will learn how to manipulate fabric for printing.  We will precoat fabric,  print images and learn what is necessary to obtain a quality print on fabric.  The fabrics we print will be an added element in our journals or art books.

Pima tex cotton, organdy, watercolor paper, lutradur and tyvec will be among the surfaces printed. Heat distressing some of the printed surfaces, along with other fabrics will give a textural element to our pieces. Working with digital prints and manipulating them into collage makes for interesting journal pages.  Expand your thinking on how to use photographs and images in your mixed media art and journals by printing on these surfaces.

I will have tons of pieces from my stash for everyone to use, even some printed beverage cans.  There will be plenty of opportunity to get private instruction and stretch in you knowledge on digital printing and journal making in every aspect.

Contact Kim at Hudson River Valley Art Workshops  for any further information on enrollment and
accommodations.

If you have any questions about the workshop content please contact KathyAnne.

Alaska Fiber Festival Notes

Just returned from teaching in Anchorage Alaska at Alaska Fiber Festival.  It was amazing and an incredible amount of fun!  The work the students created turned out great!

During the Extreme Textural Surfaces participants stretched and experimented with elements, then developed textures and fresh ideas.

In the digital printing workshop, my little Epson PM 260 printed over 72 prints and all of them wonderful color.  Luckily the assistant that helped with all the printing was fabulous and was equal to the task.  (Thanks, Natalie:)

Then there was the watercolor paper journal class.  Every journal created showed the personality of the artist.

The last 2 workshops entailed freehand cutting and piecing techniques.  This way of working is always a challenge and the participants got it together on that subject..

All in all it was an exciting creative time.  Everyone involved in the festival did a wonderful job.  The fashion show and the quilt show were outstanding.  Glad to have been there.

The subject of textures appears in my work often and after spending 2 days in the classroom working with textural surfaces, I have decided to start posting a texture a week.  This will happen on one of my other blogs- www.kathyannewhite.blogspot.com  Every week a new texture will appear, setting up some of the ideas I working on for my next ebook "Extreme Textural Surfaces".  The more I explore the more I discover, so creating a new textural surface every week will assist me in pushing beyond what I have been thinking and developing with textures.  Of course digital prints will be one of the main elements, but who knows where this will take me.  Check it out today, the first post is already up.

Thanks to everyone in Alaska,  it was great!  You all rock!!!

Studio Matters

It's been an exciting week and there is so much going on in my studio.  Tomorrow I leave to teach 5 workshops at the Alaska Fiber Festival.  This caused a serious problem with packing enough supplies, etc to get my 2 suitcases under 50 lbs each:)   I would love to move my whole studio any time I teach a workshop, but that is not happening.  So I get as many things for the students to use as I can and have to walk away from the rest.

Also this week, Adobe invited me to join the expanded prerelease program for their new Photoshop CS5.  This is the part where you get to see what is coming up, play with the software in a beta version and find bugs and see what makes it crash.  Of course, I already had a full week planned, but I just couldn't resist working with CS5.  Since I signed a confidentiality agreement, I can't share anything about the program. Now my goal is to work on Photoshop everyday to contribute to the process.  The next couple of days will be tough with traveling, but there are some new images in the works and these would be great ones to create with CS5.

  Crocheted hemp, crocheted wire, twigs, textural work in progress.

Digital Printing on Wood Veneer

Wood veneer, what a great surface for digital printing.  For these test examples of the wood surface, I used a bark print designed from a photo taken in Yosemite's Mariposa Grove.  The print is textural and works well with the grain of the wood veneer.    The prints are created with 6 of the inkAID precoats: semi gloss, clear matte, type ll, pearl iridescent, silver iridescent and gold iridescent.  Who would want to cover the wood with an iridescent when the wood grain may not show thru?  I would, because I want to see what effect all the precoats have on the wood and the look of the print.  You never know what you may discover.

The iridescent is interesting since it emphasizes the texture of the wood and still shows some of the grain.  You can see from the pictures, the iridescent's look white that is mostly cause by reflection of the iridescent.  Up close they look mostly iridescent, but these precoats do lighten up the wood surface.

The differences in the precoats are hard to capture on camera, but there is a difference between the semi gloss, clear matte and the type ll.  My choice for clarity and the brightest image on the wood is clear matte.  Although my advice is to try all of the coatings to see which is best for your purpose.  It is always better to try them all and make notes while you are experimenting.  The gold iridescent is beautiful on the wood.

I worked with a cherry type color of veneer and also a white birch type color.  You will need to decide what is best for your purposes.  My suggestion again is to try them and play with images and coatings to see what works for you.

Here are some hints on coating the veneer.  If you are using smaller pieces of veneer (my prints measured 17" x 76") you will want to tape the very edges of the veneer to your table.  The thinner the veneer, the more it wants to roll when wet.  If you have the veneer rolling to one side or the other, even when you flatten it, you may have a little lift on the edge.  This lift will or edge curl can catch on your print heads and that is not a good thing.  I pressed the veneer with an iron after coating and drying, and set it under my 48" x 96" mats on my tables.  There was a little edge lift or curl when I coated the back side with white matte precoat in order to print the back.  I didn't tape the veneer to the table, but probably will the next time.  No carrier sheet was used to print.

My next challenge is the art pieces that are taking shape in my mind.  It will take a bit to get that going and once I do, the results will be in a future post.

If you want more information about the wood veneer I am working with, please contact Pat Dowlen.
He is a great guy and would love to talk to you about this product.  He can tell you how to purchase the veneer and sizes etc.  You can also contact me for any questions you have about working with this surface.  I am happy to share whatever I know.

Detail pics of printed veneer:

Polymer Clay Journal Covers

Book of Forests 6 was completed at the end of January during Winter Play in Port Townsend Washington. Teesha and Tracy Moore were the hosts for this incredible weekend.  Lots of time to concentrate and create as well as enjoy the other participants.  My focus was to use the polymer clay covers for my latest art book - Book of Forests 6.   To the left above, you see the front and back covers.  The darker is the front and composed of polymer clay, that has embedded wire mesh on the surface.  Holes are drilled for other elements to be attached with wires.

Detail

This book is composed of a multitude of digitally printed surfaces that have been assemble to make up the pages.

Printed lace paper with printed canvas accents.

Printed lace paper, printed vellum, wire mesh,

printed canvas, beads.

Printed cheesecloth skins, printed lutradur, printed watercolor paper.

Printed vellum, collaged and printed watercolor paper, crocheted hemp, printed beverage can, wire and beads.

Printed copper and bronze mesh with brass wire

Printed aluminum screen, beads, wrapped ring.

Top view of Book of Forests 6.  Pages are around 5" x 5".  These book pages will be included in my ebook in progress "Assemble Intriguing Surfaces"  Hopefully the book will be available in April.  

"Assemble Intriguing Surfaces" will document how many of my assemblages are created with lots of visuals and creative ideas.  

Mariposa Grove 2-Recycled Beverage Cans

Mariposa Grove 2 is the latest piece in my Forest Surfaces Series.  The recycled beverage cans in this piece are coated with inkAID Type ll precoat before printing with my Epson Stylus PRO4800.

Meriposa Grove measures 81" x 36" and is composed of 146 cans.

The squares of cans are pieced with 3 layers.  Each squares bottom layer is half of a can, the middle is crocheted 28 gauge steel wire, the top layer is a half of a can that is cut in 4 pieces and then wired to all the layers with 24 gauge copper wire.  The squares and other can pieces are assembled with 24 gauge copper wire.  There are detail pictures in my post of January 15, 2010-Assembling Digital Prints on Beverage Cans.

Also there is a video update on printing the cans and how I assembled them in my blog post of January 20, 2010- Recycle a Beverage Can to a Digital Print-Video Update.

Details below

Clear Matte Precoat from inkAID

Last year inkAID introduced a new product Clear Matte Precoat.  In the last couple of weeks I have been using the coating on a variety of surfaces. These surfaces include: recycled beverage cans, hand made bark paper from kozo fiber, hand made cheesecloth skins, metal mesh, pima tex cotton, organdy, lace paper, lutradur and recycled printers plates.  I tested it on surfaces next to inkAID's Semi Gloss Precoat, Pearl Iridescent and Type ll since these are my most used coatings.

Clear Matte gives a translucent, matte finish which allows the underlying image to show through. If you have a dyed or painted surface, the colors will show through on the print creating an overprint. Depending on how dark the colors are on the surface of the fabric or paper, you will see sections of the print or not.

What I found with my printing is that on porous fabrics such as organdy, the clear matte will give a slightly clearer print then the semi gloss.  When printing on metals and cans, it has a nice matte finish, but still allows the shade of the metal to show.  In some cases it is hard to see the difference between the coatings used.  I encourage you to try it on the surfaces that you like to print to see what you think.  It's always good to see how coatings perform on various surfaces.

As with all the inkAID coatings Clear Matte results in a quality print.  It has some adhesive in it, so it is safe to use on metals, but may show tracking with pizza wheels from some printers.  I had none of that going on with my prints.  Each print was professional quality with a clear bright image.  My printing was all created on my Epson 4800.  I printed the same image on all the surfaces so that it could be easily compared.

I loved the comparison of Type ll, Pearl and Clear Matte on the recycled beverage cans.  All 3 of these coatings created a beautiful print on the cans.  For more information on using inkAID products on fabrics and specialty papers see my workshop, "Getting Started with Digital Prints on Uncommon Surfaces."

Digital Printing Wood Veneer

Last week a company that distributes wood veneer contacted me about digital printing on their product.
Yesterday I received a couple of 17" wide pieces ready to fit my 4800 for printing.  Of course UPS came just as I was leaving to go to the airport for Winter Play.  All I had time for was to check out the product and then put it away.  Since I haven't coated and tested it, these photographs will serve to show you the 2 longer pieces I will be printing when I get back to my studio next week.

Some of the smaller pieces from their sample pack seem like they will be a little too thick, but there are many that will be just fine.  Some of the pieces have an adhesive backing so they look interesting.  Once I see how this works, I will post the information here and also give you information where to purchase the product.

I did finish my can piece based on the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park.  Thought the pics were on the hard drive I carry with me when I travel, but I guess I forgot to move them from my main computer, so next week I will show you how that piece turned out.

Recycle a Beverage Can to a Digital Print-Video Update

Here is the video update from my previous post. It shows a 2 of my can pieces and how I am assembling the piece based on the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite.

Assembling Digital Prints on Beverage Cans

Finished printing 100 more cans to add to this piece.  Still haven't decided if I will wire them all across, or keep them in rows the way they are.  Regardless, I am assembling the pieces that are ready to go.  The print for this piece is from the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park.

Here also is one of the carrier sheets with the bottom half of the entire print.  Since I only print 8 cans at a time, I divide the print before printing.

Once the cans are ready, I will assemble them to fit with the other pieces.  When starting a piece, printing 100 cans to start will get me on the track of figuring out the way the piece will be assembled and what it will look like.  With this piece, the way I thought it would be is nothing near the way it worked out.  The original idea about constructing the cans came from the installation for Mack Web Solutions.  (Click on the link to see the blog post)

When I arrived to install the piece, all the cans were in one piece and they evolved into being cut, stacked and wired together with glass beads separating the layers.  For this Mariposa Grove piece, I cut the top layer of each square in 4 pieces.  The bottom layer is a duplicate of the top layer, but in one piece.  I crocheted 28 gauge stainless wire to put between the 2 layers.  Then copper wire was used to wire the layers together and add it to the piece.