My goal is to have a goal

The roundabout pattern of having a problem, trouble shooting and then solving the problem has been my theme with my photo fresco experiments over the past five or so years. It's addicting in that solving the problems is like having immediate goal, something to work on, so each time I get one issue out of the way another pops up. Lately I've gotten past most of my old issues with durability and embedding images and I've even gotten the cost of materials for a medium sized piece down to less than $20, which means I don't have any immediate goals besides production and content. Oh, what to do? My last small set of test pieces were made in a batch of 5 molds with a variety of random images added to the mix. I have gotten a final surface using epoxy that imitates brick without having a glossy top surface. The image area is clear with a spray painted stencil image painted and in some cases molded into the pieces creating a relief effect. The light can shine through the clear areas creating an effect that can change depending on the placement of the final piece. I've attached and reinforced the epoxy shell to the frame with fiberglass cloth and tape. These pieces should survive well if weathered or left in dank or rough conditions, with the exception of high heat, over 130 degrees. I did not fill the backs with gypsum plasters or cement, so they are light enough to hand and could very well survive a good fall of six feet or more without significant breakage. This leaves the only problem to be solved is the clear areas will turn yellow over time with exposure to the sun. I found an early piece laying in my yard, weathered and the coloring behind the clear epoxy was protected by the top surface. Even though the epoxy had yellowed the colors kept this effect from overshadowing and distorting the colors. The yellowing was more dramatic in areas where there was a white substrate. The bigger problem with this earlier piece was the plaster below the image was eaten away and dissolving from laying in the dirt. Also it was fragile as I dropped it back to the ground it snapped. Thus I am confident that two of these longstanding issues with may materials are solved, like the fragility and top surface yellowing except for the areas in my pieces that are clear. The biggest question is how much yellowing will occur as I don't think all the additional coatings in the world will do anything more than add work, cost and change the finished look and feel that I am currently happy with. The yellowing of epoxy is acceptable to me in that I am thinking of it in the same way as how "clear" appears in nature. Amber is a very protective transparent surface that last forever and even diamonds are yellow to some degree. Hopefully the yellowing in epoxy is not indicative of an internal breakdown of the strength or chemical structure that makes the epoxy durable. Next goal please.

Cost aren't everything, there are evil forces at work everywhere.

Cost aren't everything, but as long as this is a labor of love then I still have to put food on my table and materials cost are a dominant issue. Currently my epoxy casting has allowed me to start thinking about content again as I have felt like it was the best overall product to use with a combination of other plaster cement products when backing strength and a solid fill are required. My favorite item has been faux bricks, or brick panels that I make using old silk screens from my screen printing business. I have been making frame structures and mounting sets of these that could be used as a wall or fence. Since I also have spray painted designs and made patterns in the molds it takes on a decorative tile like effect with the brick wall concept as the background motif. To test these walls for strength my son uses his lacrosse stick and ball and pounds it to see which pieces are strong enough to survive. Surviving the durability test is only part of the problem; it's the invisible destroyers that are hard at work weakening and destroying the look and materials. Water and sun are the most evil environmental hazards that must be stopped from wearing away the internal structure and allowing the piece to move inside the frame where it can eventually break out if not kept in a poorly lighted dry space. Ideally the pigments I've been using would provide a barrier to the elements, but now I have started making some transparent castings and I like the clear coat and the depth provided in the molds. Realistically there may be nothing I can do that isn't going to add expense to the project, but I have to consider the damaging effects of UV at a minimum. I've left some clear coated epoxy pieces outside they've turned yellowish pretty quickly, as well as, had some delaminating problems with clear coated epoxy finished that weren't anchored with cloth. So, what to do? Putting a Varathane or Ultra Violet clear coating on top of the epoxy finish is the first and easiest suggestion that is basically a painted coat that does change the hue of the surface and will eventually wear away anyway, so what is the point. I don't want to have to re-coat pieces or expect people to varnish their artwork like it is a wooden boat. Next I was told about a two part urethane, similar to what is used to paint cars, that can be applied in a thin layer and create a good strong UV protected surface. It sounds glossy and troublesome as mixing and setting epoxy is enough work already. Plus I may have to spray the urethane paint to make it apply smoothly. I don't think so. The only other manual method of resolving this issue would be to put a piece of polarized glass on top of the surface which would defeat the idea of making a relief to begin with. This leaves the only option which is to work with colored epoxy, so that the pigments can do the work of resisting weathering. Oh, what to do, what to do?

Oh and back to my original estimates on time to complete, WRONG!

My original estimates on my new found techniques on time it takes to complete a set of castings are wrong. Materials are wrong too! Double everything at least. Double the time to 3 days to complete a set of approximately 10-12 pieces. Assuming the molds are ready to go. Also the more I do in a batch, the more tedious the process gets by the time I get to the tenth one. I would like to say 6 pieces in a batch may be a good number of castings. 10 to 15 ounces of Epoxy are required at a minimum to get a good coating without holes and really, by the time it would be reinforced with cloth and tape it should be around 25 oz for a solid transparent piece that should avoid sagging.

This pumps up the cost and cost of labor in any real world scenario. My guess now is $20 for materials, not counting the frame or mold. And two completed pieces per day, which would translate to $80 each for labor if I was so lucky to make $20 an hour. Therefore if I sold these items I would have to ask for $100 minimum, just to cover my time and effort if I was going to try and make a living. Still, no overhead, transportation or operational expenses are included in this calculation. For now it will remain a labor of love, but for any extended period of time I am only going to be able to market these as "art" from a cost standpoint.

Epoxy does what it does and does it well

Having reached a new high in my development of the "right" materials for me, I now find myself trying to answer bigger questions like content and purpose. I've removed the polyester resin from my work and am still playing with epoxy as the best weather resistant material that I can cast into photo-graphic reliefs using the photo fresco techniques that I have developed. I am sure there are harder epoxies on the market, but since I am trying to pour a very thin layer, mixed with pigment when needed, it tends to be rubbery and flexible. This flexibility can be increase with heat, aka the sun, and can make an epoxy coat weaken or become malleable, as well as, hot to the touch.

To give body to the back side of the epoxy I poured some cement and think that it will anchor enough to strengthen to topside of the epoxy coat. I suppose any filler could be used, like a piece of wood, or foam, stuff that is similar to how a surfboard is made. I still have some space in my frame and can fill it out to a flush, or slightly recessed surface which can make a two sided faux brick panel. The issue now is which side should be the weather side, assuming I use these panels to build a tile wall or an exterior shelter of some sort. Originally I wanted the epoxy for the sealed side and still feel like that is the best option, however the cement or plaster side can deflect heat better.

This may come down to a choice between decorative area inside or outside. I feel the cement or plaster finished side will be more the motif or pattern area and the inside will be the decorative tile. Or if I used the epoxy finished panel as a table then the epoxy coated surface would have to be the table top area and the gypsum plaster or cement backed area would be the bottom. No table dancing please as these have not been tested for extreme party use.

My failure last week with a table that delaminated was a partial success in that the top layer of gypsum plaster did bond to the epoxy and stayed with the top surface that separated from the base. I think the delaminated pieces came apart as a result of two different pours of plaster or cement with a long, several day period of time, in between. Hopefully I have solved some of the issues with a better bond between the frame and the epoxy so that no water can get under the top coast of epoxy, but only time will tell if that is true. Also I am hopeful that the bond between the epoxy and the cement plaster is stronger. As a vertical wall this piece would have a better chance at survival because the water can run off, whereas, as a horizontal table there is a inset well of sorts and grooves that water can puddle up in and find a way to penetrate the materials.

Next step next. A pleasant surprise.

I was pleasantly surprised by the results from my haphazard attempts to use a clear medium for the top casting of some frescoes I was working with. The epoxy appears to work better than the polyester resin. Here are two images of a Nick Nolte Mugshot that I first cast as clear, then painted with spray paint and pigment based epoxy. I haven't decided if I want to fill the back with cement yet to let the back side absorb sunlight and heat through the cement, yet. Currently the photographic image part of the design with Nick Nolte is transparent and allows light to pass through.

Once I pulled this from the mold I quickly went to my workshop and set up 13 molds to try and pour a large batch of clear only photo fresco prints, using my set of celebrity mugshot molds. Using a minimal amount of epoxy, to keep the clear layer as thin as possible, I leveled, mixed and quickly poured the batch in less than 2-3 hours. Later I went back and did a second pour which added another 2 hours to the process. My guesstimate is that I can successfully do about 12 pieces in a full 8-hour day, not counting the time to make the original molds. Next I have to decide if I am going to layer cloth behind, but that is a technicality. I have to appreciate the product for what it is and the fact that my experiment worked for what I wanted.

No such thing as transparent plaster, but if there was then I would be King.

The product I would like to find is a clear concrete or transparent plaster. I've been working with epoxy and polyester resin again because of the transparent effect that is mysteriously entertaining. An earlier problem that I have consistently had is sealing the photo fresco pieces with water resistant layers. Epoxy has a good hard finish, but because of the thick nature of epoxy the texture that comes from the original casting of the plaster or concrete is lost to the flattened, but durable epoxy finish. To resolve this I have been using epoxy in my molds to begin with and trying to create a depth of layers in reverse order to imitate the photo fresco look and feel without losing the texture. If only there was a transparent plaster then my life would be simple and carefree.

The time it takes to pour epoxy runs counter to my natural instincts and demand for instant gratification. I am trying to turn the tables on my work and reverse engineer my process to see if it really takes more time to put the finishing touches on an easily made piece. Or if it is less time consuming to make the original casting in durable and water resistant materials, like epoxy and resin, to begin with. I've spent the that last couple of days setting up a couple of samples and I haven't gotten to the point where I can remove any of the pieces from a mold, but the concept of epoxy first is promising, more so than polyester resin.

My latest failure manifested itself with a table that I left out in the rain and it delaminated between two layers of plaster, but I think the top layer of epoxy curled in the sunshine and peeled back one layer of the plaster from a layer of the cement. I may have used Tufstone for the layer that peeled back, but it appears to have adhered to the epoxy quite well.

I also poured a few layers of clear polyester resin into some urethane rubber molds and the shrinkage of the resin was extreme. Either I kept the room to hot for the resin and it set too quickly or I put too much activator in the resin and it turned the resin whitish and made it withdraw from the mold. I still continued to paint and pour more resin and polyester fiber to reinforce the pieces and hope that it will create some unexpected result that will prove once again that I have no idea what to expect when I switch materials over and over again.

My final hope is that if I pour some plaster behind the resin it will hold the piece together long enough to get it out of the mold and I can see the effect of the rapidly cured resin. I doubt it will be a pleasing result, but it's all I got. After that mockery of an experiment I went back to using epoxy to get a clear surface to work from. It just takes so damn long to cure that I am very likely to ruin much of my work by playing with the pieces set up.

A new solution to the problem of my patience, just for the sake of getting a true experiment and get a durable transparent final product, would be to use my distant workshop, instead of my backyard, to cast these things. I need to schedule my work day around these long setting times that often cause me to mess up the experiment. My workshop is in Richmond CA and I live over a bridge with a $5 toll, so the cost is an issue. If I can only make myself get out in the morning, before the phone starts ringing and my work day begins, then I can go to the workshop for a morning run and cast a limited amount of work on a daily basis. I might be able to allow some items to even cure properly instead of over saturating resin with catalyst.

Today I cleared out an outside trailer, which is also good for allowing the fumes to dissipate while the polyester resin and/or the epoxy cure. Since it is spring the temperatures may even be favorable enough to let some stuff set up without spending a fortune on running a heater to keep the shop warm. I can only hope. The cycle of casting, painting, setting and finishing is long enough that if I keep two pieces a day in different stages then in a week I can have some finished product coming out of the shop. My priority has to be to keep the process consistent or else there will never be a cycle of production.

Here is a list of the steps required to get one of my plastic photo fresco pieces completed.

1) Clean a couple of screens and remove the ink residue and set in some anchors and anchor holes.

2) Mount the cleaned frames into a mold on a flat surface to insure the final piece top layer is flush and flat.

3) Mix and pour a layer of clear polyester casting resin or epoxy and cover with a screen to keep debris, dirt and bugs from sticking to the setting transparent materials. Allow to dry a minimum of 5-10 hours, depending on the materials used.

4) Spray paint or apply a stencil or graphic in layers using spray paint, print outs or stencils to put a design into the molded materials. Pour a back coating of colored epoxy that will bond to the epoxy or to the clear polyester resin. Applying a thin layer of fiberglass cloth or loose fibers can help strengthen the back layers. Allow dry time of 10-12 hours.

5) Pour a thickened back layer or attach a frame bumper to hold the piece together and allow it to be removed from the mold. There are many