Digital Grounds: Printing on Hessian

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Please enjoy a rerun of my experiments with digital grounds; this is where it all began …

Digital Grounds and Hessian Are you enjoying playing with your Digital Grounds? My obsession continues …

Continuing my tests with Digital Grounds, I thought I’d try it out on some hessian. I love the texture of the hessian and though that it might produce a nice print – which indeed it did!

The image below was created in photoshop and then printed onto a piece of off-white hessian that was treated with Digital Grounds. The Digital Grounds made the hessian quite stiff which produced a great surface on which to print.

Digital Grounds and Hessian

You can see from the closeups below that the details on the image on the left (which was treated with Digital Grounds) are crisp and well defined while the details on the image on the right (which was not treated with Digital Grounds) are kind of fuzzy and my less defined.

Digital Grounds and Hessian

And not only that, I thought I’d give my poor old printer a real workout and I backed the hessian with a piece of cream muslin to catch the leftover ink that would be printed out in the spaces on the hessian, and I ended up with a really nice piece of fabric with a lovely “negative” print on it which I can cut up and use as a coordinate with my main image. My printer didn’t quite have a seizure but that was sure a lot of fabric to go through in one pass!

Digital Grounds and Hessian

So are you ready to give Digital Grounds a go yet?

Digital Grounds Sample Set

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Digital Grounds: More Printing on Cheesecloth

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Please enjoy a rerun of my experiments with digital grounds; this is where it all began …

Digital Grounds and Cheesecloth The other day I did some testing with Digital Grounds using cheesecloth. I like using cheesecloth in my artwork because of the wonderful texture it produces.

For this test I used cheesecloth with an “acrylic skin” backing. For most textile artists “acrylic skins” will be a foreign technique. The video below explains the process using paint to make the skin however for the cheesecloth technique the skins can also be made using Matte Medium or similar type mediums which dry clear. A clear skin will give you a transparent background for your cheesecloth.

This is a video from the Golden Products website explaining the technique.

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Digital Grounds and Inkaid vs The Washing Machine

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Linda Matthews

With only one week left to sign up for my Exploring Digital Grounds on Fabric online class (note – registration for this online class now closed), I thought I’d answer one of the most often asked questions about digital grounds – are images printed using digital grounds waterproof and can they be washed?

From my previous experiments with water testing which you can read about in this post, I already know that the two clear types of digital grounds are definitely not water resistant unless you apply a sealer.

The white matte does have a certain level of water resistance but water marks may occur when the print is either partially submerged or if splattered with water drops.

But just for the heck of it, I thought I’d give some prints the ultimate water test by both hand washing and machine washing and here are the results. These prints are prepared using digital grounds white matte, and printed using Epson durabrite inks.

Printing on Fabric

As you can see, the color held up pretty well during both washings and there is no discernible difference between the original print and the washed prints.

However I also tested Inkaid white matte, which is supposed to be fully machine washable, but it didn’t fare too well and pointed to a potential problem when using either digital grounds or inkaid…

This print folded over on itself during the machine washing which resulted in the color along the folded edge being rubbed off.

Printing on Fabric

So to sum out, you certainly can machine wash prints made using digital grounds and the color holds up well. But digital grounds (and inkaid) are surface treatments, so the ink when printed, lies on top of the fabric rather than soaking into the fabric and the image can be easily scratched. Personally I would always use a sealer to protect the image from damage, dirt and fading, however it’s nice to know there are options!

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Now for something completely different

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Linda Matthews

This is something new I’ve been working on this week – a three dimensional fabric vessel titled “Awakening”.

I used one of my own digital art designs printed onto textured tissue paper which was treated with digital grounds; this gave the print a rich deep color and fine detail that you might not be able to see in the photos seeing as how I’m such a great photographer and all. Then I applied a touch of gold foil over the surface to highlight the texture. And of course some beading.

Fabric Vessel

You can see the texture and the foiling better in this closeup.

Fabric Vessel

I love it! I’m off to do some more!

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Testing the Waters with Digital Grounds

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Please enjoy a rerun of my experiments with digital grounds; this is where it all began.

Today I decided to take a little time out and do some water testing on some of the samples I’ve so far printed using Digital Grounds.

Digital Grounds Sample Set

In the Digital Grounds Sample Kit is included a small tub each of Gel Topcoat (semi-gloss) and Gel Topcoat (gloss) so I thought I’d give them a try out to see how waterproof they really were.

What I know

I already know that the prints using my Epson with Durabrite inks are water resistant simply due to the nature of the inks and after applying a small amount of water with a foam paintbrush, this is confirmed. There was no indication that the colors even slightly smudged on any of the treated or untreated areas.

I also know that the dye-based colors from my Lexmark do run on untreated fabric.

I used the sample printed on the pfd cotton fabric and tested the dye-based sample with both water and the Gel Topcoats. The results are interesting.

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