Online Class Project: Waiting For Spring

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Linda Matthews

Whew … just finished the project for my upcoming “Exploring Digital Grounds on Fabric” online class; a beautiful fabric notebook cover using one of my digital art designs called “Waiting for Spring”. And aren’t we all? Waiting for spring that is.

Working with this project, students will learn the techniques I use to prepare the fabric that I print on to make my art bags, art journals and accessories. This is a technique I’ve developed using a special “fabric paper” recipe – a fusion of muslin, tissue and cheesecloth. This book cover is designed to hold a large size Moleskine notebook. If you’ve never used a Moleskine, it just feels good to use one; they are lovely notebooks.

So here it is; “Waiting for Spring” …

Fabric Book Cover

It has an elastic wrap to hold it closed …

Fabric Book Cover

Includes designs for three fabric tag bookmarks …

Fabric Book Cover

And designs for three standard fabric bookmarks …

Fabric Book Cover

And of course, lovely texture to print on …

Fabric Book Cover

… Continue reading →

Digital Grounds: Testing on Lutradur

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Linda Matthews

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

Digital Grounds and Lutradur
Some of you have asked how Digital Grounds works with non-woven materials like tyvek and lutradur. Today let’s look at Lutradur.

I like using lutradur for certain applications; much for the same reasons that I like to use dryer sheets. They both have a beautiful web-like texture. Lutradur of course is stiffer than a dryer sheet, and a dryer sheet is softer but with a luminous quality. So both have different qualities but share the web-like texture which I really like.

So how does lutradur perform in the printer with digital grounds?

Judge for yourself …

This image was printed with a piece of lutradur that was painted on the left hand side with a “wash” of white matte digital ground, and the right hand side was left untreated. The difference is quite noticeable.

Digital Grounds and Lutradur

White Matte Digital Grounds tends to give the best image reproduction on most fabrics I’ve tested but because it’s opaque, it’s not always suitable for every fabric. The advantage of using white matte as a “wash” is that if the “wash” is diluted enough it doesn’t mask the beautiful surface texture on certain fabrics and materials such as dryer sheets and lutradur, yet still produces an exceptional quality print.

You can see in this closeup of the treated side. that the image is crisp and clear, the colors deep and rich, and the web-like texture is still quite visible under the wash.

Digital Grounds and Lutradur

On the untreated side, the image is faint and the colors are washed out.

Digital Grounds and Lutradur

And this is a photo of the backing paper – worthy of a digital print all by itself!

Digital Grounds and Lutradur

So if you haven’t yet tried Digital Grounds you don’t need to run around town to find it coz I don’t think you’ll see it in the stores – simply click and grab a sample pack from DickBlick.com. It’ll be on your doorstep before you know it.

Digital Grounds Sample Set

… Continue reading →

Fabric Wrist Cuff

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Linda Matthews

I’ve been having some fun recently making fabric jewelry using bits and pieces of leftover embellishments and other odds and ends like “injured prints”. “Injured prints” are inkjet prints on fabric that didn’t quite turn out good enough for the project, but not bad enough to throw away.

Last week I showed you a fabric necklace that I made using some embellished yo-yos. You can see it here. And I also had a small “injured print” with a very bold and beautiful design printed on it that I wanted to use for a piece of fabric jewelry also. I decided to use it for a fabric wrist cuff. And this is how it turned out.

I love the beautiful bold design and I used digital grounds to prepare the fabric first so the colors and deep and rich and the design is very crisp. And I kind of like the shape of the wrist cuff, very bold also to complement the printed design. But I think there’s something missing. I’m not quite sure what it is; I might have to let this one sit for a while.

Fabric Wrist Cuff

Digital Grounds: Printing on Cheesecloth

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Linda Matthews

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

I often work with cheesecloth and incorporate it in different ways into my art quilts and more recently into the fabric paper that use to make some of my art bags, but I’ve never tried to print directly onto it feeling that with all the holes that the reproduction wouldn’t be that great. However I just came across some closely woven cheesecloth that I thought might work and thinking that the digital ground might form a surface that would result in a good clear print.

So I painted it into six sections to see which would give the best reproduction:
- a strip on the left hand side with two coats on the upper half and one coat on the bottom half using Digital Ground for Non-Porous Surfaces
- the center strip was left untreated
- a strip on the right hand side with two coats on the upper half and one coat on the bottom half using Digital Ground Clear Gloss (porous surfaces).

And then I ironed it onto a backing of freezer paper.

Well surprisingly there was no difference in the color reproduction on any of the sections; the only difference being that the center strip that was untreated was very soft and the other two strips were fairly stiff. This is a nice surprise! Printing directly on cheesecloth offers up some very nice options for getting creative with images and cheesecloth texture.

This is what the cheesecloth looks like with a white background.

Digital Grounds and Cheesecloth

This is what the cheesecloth looks like with a black background.

Digital Grounds and Cheesecloth

This is what the cheesecloth looks like with an image printed directly onto untreated cheesecloth and then placed on a hand dyed background – very nice! I think I gotta get me some more of that cheesecloth – I really like it!

Digital Grounds and Cheesecloth

But as for using Digital Grounds with this type of cheesecloth – a big thumbs down … coz you don’t need it!
Thumbs Up

Digital Grounds Sample Set

(Thanks to Sukanto Debnath for the great photo that I used for my print.)

… Continue reading →

Digital Grounds: Printing on Dryer Sheets

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Linda Matthews

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

I like using dryer sheets in my art quilts and I particularly like printing on dryer sheets because the resulting prints are luminous and have beautiful web-like texture that you can’t achieve using other fabrics.

Digital Grounds and Dryer Sheets