Crazy:)

Last weekend I finished all the work for my upcoming show:
Arizona Commission on the Arts Awards: 2009 Prescott Project Grant Recipients -May 21-June 25, 2010, Yavapai College Art Gallery.

Outside my studio is a covered patio, where I assembled my Mariposa Grove 3 to see what it would look like once it was in the gallery.  I had been over the ideas for installation with the powers that be in the gallery.  To make a long story short ( and not to sound like I am complaining) it didn't work out the way it was planned, so today I took the strands apart and right now they are laying on the gallery floor till tomorrow, when I will reassemble it in another way to hang on the wall, flat and not the way it was intended.

Hopefully this will have a happy ending.  The show opens Friday night this week and after 3 months of work it would be great to hang this piece.  Stay tuned and we will see what happens.  Until then here are some pictures of the piece 10 feet long and 42 inches across the circle.

Mariposa Grove 3

Recycled Beverage Can Installation

Since returning from my trip to Alaska, my new project is taking shape.  It was started sometime in February by figuring out what surfaces were going to be put together and how.  Then the print to work from.  Chosen surfaces decided on are: digital prints on beverage cans, digital prints on my hand made amate bark paper, twigs and hemp. 

The strands of the elements measure 10 ft long and around 1 ½ “ wide.  They are fragile, light and will hang in a circular configuration.  Of course that will be subject to change as more and more pieces are created.  Currently, over 400 cans have been printed.

There are around 400 of the small elements almost together, as you can see by the pictures below. Many piles of cans are ready to cut and assemble.  This is a seriously tedious process.  Let’s hope it has the end result I am searching for.  

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."