Building a Surface with Beverage Cans

Getting towards the end of this beverage can assemblage. The piece contains digital prints on beverage cans—looped and attached with crocheted wire. 

Detail

Digital Alternative Surfaces with Paper

Working with paper and paper elements you can create a thin textural substrate to enhance your digital print.  I have included some closeups here from the samples for a workshop just published on KathyAnne Art -"Constructing Simple Surfaces for Digital Printing."

Sometimes it's the simple ideas that can get some amazing looks from your digital prints.  Two of the ideas in this workshop include using cut up maps and regular old tissue paper.  Map details are not in the pictures here.

The great thing about adding these elements to paper is that you can get a textural look from the paper where the map print is seen along with some surface texture by printing your digital image on this alternative surface.  With tissue paper you can do all sorts of little crinkles in the tissue and still have the paper go through a regular pass through printer.  The combinations of elements to define texture are of course unlimited. Experimenting with this amazingly fun!

The digital alternative surfaces pictured here have a spontaneous wrinkled surface.  The details in the first 4 are from a sheet of soft paper that is wrinkled and then printed.  It makes a luscious surface seen in person with a matte soft surface that invokes the texture of the image and the paper.  The second set of more colorful prints substrate is a base of smooth thin kozo paper covered with tissue for the texture.

Recycling Paper with Digital Prints

This new piece in the works combines digital prints on recycled dictionary pages, ice resin, cotton cording, and crochet to create an extremely textural surface.  The words play against the colors in the digital print.  Once the prints are torn and strung on the cotton cord, the prints are crocheted.  There are over 120 prints that have been lightly coated with ice resin that takes them to a shiny surface. Not sure how many prints are in this so far, but there is lots to go.  The interesting way the prints and random shapes are connected assist me in wanting to push forward.  I'm loving the textures as they combine with colors and shapes.  Slow going, but fun!

Printed Metal Collage

Last week on August 12th at the end of my post I included a picture of a printed metal piece that was just starting.  Here is the piece finished.  It consists of several layers and I will start at the bottom and work up in the description.

When all the layers are together the bottom is hardware cloth as you saw in the original picture on the 12th.  On the way up in the layers is metal screen and then a cut out of the printed metal.  The surface is a digital print that originated with a  detail of one of my pieces.  From there I attached the metal to the hardware cloth and metal screen using beads and wire.  The beads between the surfaces start to give the raised 3D look I want.  From there a piece of crocheted brass wire is added to the pieces of wire from the tops of all the beads.  For the top layer I wrapped silver wire around another cutout of the metal.  This cut out was then added to the very top of the configuration.  Picture and detail follows.

Texture on Surfaces

It's been a busy time around my studio.  Finishing a new ebook that should be ready next week.  Getting ready to teach at Art Unraveled and participate in their vendor day- Shopping Extravaganza.  Plus all the other things I am inspired to do around here.  Where does the time go?

Once my current ebook is finished, another ebook is in the works on the subject of digital printing.  Then to follow that one a second part with new and extraordinary surfaces to print.  Posted here are some tests for some ideas.

The surfaces have been altered in some way before printing.  Archival tissue paper has been used as well as sand, gesso, mica flakes, pumice gel and a few others.  It is hard to see this is photos and there are no before pics.  When the surface are prepared to print for inclusion in my ebook, I will have pictures of the flat image, textured surface before printing and textured surface after printing.  This way the pics will reflect the altered surface.

Working with Printed Metals

One of my new favorite things is using prints of printers plates, metal mesh and the usual beverage cans and mixing it up with other elements.  I have also been toying with metal mesh printed and then assembled into squares.  I'll show you the cube thing later, but for now here are a couple of the mesh pieces I have been doing for studies.

 This first pic is the study for one of my 2 ft x 4 ft book pages. Created with printed beverage cans-the base is a beverage can in a bark pattern, the next layer is a different can print attached to the top of the base can. I put the cans together with a crochet strip of a paper wrapped metal that I get from a bead store here in Prescott.  This makes the connection pliable and bendable.  Each square has hemp that connects it to the crochet.  I will be printing cans in the next few days to make a similar piece for my forest book page.

 This piece is created in a random manner.  It contains beverage can pieces and metal mesh pieces woven through a piece of black hardware cloth with copper wire.  Yes it is time consuming but pretty much most of what I do it.  Case in point is the piece below.

This has 3 layers- bottom in aluminum hardware cloth in its original silver state.  Over that is a piece of aluminum window screen attached to the hardware cloth with beads and stainless wire.  The top is cut out from a digital print on a printers plate.  The cut out has been wrapped with the same stainless wire that connected the beads.  This is a detail of the piece.

Textures Combining Images

Last month one of my hard drives crashed and I lost 750 GB of Photoshop files from the last 2 years.  Of course you are all saying- why didn't you back that up?  Probably because I kept saying, I have to back this up and in all these years I never had a problem, I'll get to it. The drive in question was randomly disconnecting itself and that should have been my first clue, but hey I'm invincible aren't I?   That would never happen to me.  This was an exterior drive I traveled with and got into the horrible habit of working on that hard drive anywhere I went since then it was easy to have tons of images ready on my laptop or my desk top. I am trying to be better at backing up my images, but find myself in the process now of rebuilding a library.  That brings me to the textural post for today.

This black and white is a scan of a photograph I developed the old fashion way- in a dark room.  The original image is on watercolor paper an emulsion I brushed on to be able to develop the photograph.  Here is the layering done in Photoshop to give me the final image with textures.  The textures come from the patterns and textures I create and emboss on the layer selections.

A photograph of the Merced River from Yosemite National Park was layered in with the black and white.

Selections from Merced River Photograph with textures embossed.

Final Image

Actually in some ways it has been a good thing to have to get more creative because there is only what is in front of me with images, not what was behind:)

Encaustics and Digital Prints

Encaustics create a wonderful companion medium for digital prints.  Last week I finished a page for my  Forest Book (see my KathyAnne Art post) constructed of digital prints on lutradur, melted and layered with encaustic pieces that have a base of paper clay with an assortment of digital prints and other textures. 

The process of using digital prints with encaustic has inspired me to create small studies combining textures, digital prints and paper clay with other textural elements in the wax.  In using one of my paper clay bases, I am able to have a foundation that flows and is more organic than flat. There is something beautiful going on with the combination of these surfaces which leads me to continue to pursue their partnership.  Here are a few of the results and a few comments on construction.  Later this week I will post additional pieces.  

Digitally printed water color paper, torn and layered.  encaustic, the grid is in the clay and the wax is melts into the grid texture.

Detail

The 2 pieces just above have digitally printed lutradur layered with encaustic.  The top piece uses  dyed cheesecloth on the paper clay base and the one below has a lace paper digital print on the paper clay under the lutradur pieces.

Detail of second lutradur piece

This piece is on a paper clay piece that is dyed before firing.  The digital print is on silk threaded paper and the print is on both sides of the paper before it is torn and layered with the wax.

Details

Digital Print on Lutradur

This weeks textural surface is created with a digital print on a light weight lutradur.  The print is then heat distressed, torn, layered and assembled with beads.  The individual pieces are woven into crochet hemp and brass wire is wound around some pieces of the hemp.