Miniature Photo Fresco and Epoxy Prints of Ecce Mono the Monkey Jesus

It is as if there was a God, a God who is both human and monkey, that sent a message to earth to broaden the appeal of your icons. An elderly woman in Spain heard the calling and took action to fix an ailing fresco in a small town and now the world has taken notice of this new Monkey Jesus, named, Ecce Mono, Behold the Monkey. I personally love this piece and have gone so far as to pull out some of my old tricks and make some Photo Fresco pieces to help popularize and preserve this amazing new work of art. Here is an image of the epoxy photo fresco combo and you can read more details about it here: http://yque.com/ecmojemofrwi.html

I made some larger Photo Fresco pieces and have them on display at Y-Que in Los Angeles and they have been a huge hit with people passing by and stopping to tell the store to their friends. This story may have created a record for turning a person, the elderly woman in Spain, into the most infamous artist on earth.

Restoration of Fresco Goes Awry - Ecce Mono , Behold the Monkey

This site, PhotoFresco.com, has been dedicated to working out new techniques in plaster casting, mold making and photographic epoxy printing having been inspired by ancient Fresco techniques. As a result it has been one of the most boring sites on the interweb, until now. We always feel like we are bringing some of the old world effects into new world technologies and there isn't that much excitement in the content.

This week there was a news story from Spain that is shaking up the world of traditional fresco art. A religious Fresco relic of Jesus Christ on the walls of a church in Spain was restored by a concerned amateur artist, Cecilia Gimenez, with the intentions of preserving the slowly decaying work of art. The artist fixed the Jesus painting to the point that Jesus is unrecognizable and he now looks like a monkey with a fuzzy hat. The new work has been unofficially named on the internweb as, "Ecce Mono", which translates as "Behold the Monkey". Mr Bean and Jerry Lewis have done skits where similar methods to fix messed up artwork were used, but this is for real. This painting represents a missing link in the art world, an updated vision from a blessed soul, a Monkey Jesus.

Cecilia Gimenez, a parishioner at the church, was only attempting to repair a damaged work on the walls of her house of worship and she has now become the most infamous artist on Earth. Restoration of a Fresco is not an easy task and in some cases things can go wrong if you use the wrong materials or don't properly clean the work. In some cases the newly restored work may not look exactly like the old one and it may take some time for viewers to get used to the brighter colors and smoother finish. In the case of Ecce Mono a new and more beautiful piece of work has emerged, better than the original. It is very important to keep photos of the original around to show the differences between old and new works made from old works. Generally old boring Frescoes will be forgotten as they crack and peel, but Cecilia Gimenez's techniques are divine in their simplicity and glory. The Fresco in question was only 120 years old, so it obviously was made with inferior products to the off-the-shelf materials that are available today. Work like this is divine and although it was originally believed as vandalism, upon further inspection the world now sees that the hand of God was at work here as well. God Bless the Monkey Jesus.

Is there ever a too thin when you're on an epoxy diet?

You know you've reached a limit of too thin when your pieces rip apart when you pull them from a mold. You know your pieces are too thin when your finger pushes through the piece with just a slight amount of pressure. You know your piece is too thin when you can see through it at the thickest point and when you turn it 90 degrees it's too thin to see at all. I suppose all of those are descriptions of problems associated with pieces being too thin, but it is a fun problem to have. I have even tried to make some super thin veneers on material so that I can see just how thin I can go with this basic epoxy that I get from Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond, but there does not see to be a limit on the mixture itself, only a practical limit for the material to be used in making things. I've been mixing atomized metals like aluminum into the epoxy and one effect is that when the particles are too thin to travel with the mixture of epoxy it becomes clear. The epoxy is filling crevices and cracks in the mold, but the particles can't always travel through to the same spaces. I've started mixing Thixo HP in the epoxy as a filler to keep the particles more evenly mixed, but this does keep some of the detail out and creates a few air bubbles in places. The flexibility of the epoxy increases as the thickness decreases. In some cases the pieces appear thinner than the backing paper and adhesive sticker papers are that I am applying to the backs. Definitely too thin in that case, but it's fun to have to think about thickening up a piece because I have to.

Sticky is as sticky does

A funny thing happened to me on the way from the laundry. I had recently gotten some pressure sensitive adhesive on my fingers, but stopped at the dryer to switch some clothes before going up stairs to wash my hands. I pulled a pile of lint off the lint catching device and then went the the trash can to throw it away, NOT! Everything I touched transferred a little bit of the sticky stuff and some of the lint just to let me know it was there. Back to the old business, adhesives. I got silicon caulk to stick to silicon rubber, but the silicon caulk did not stick to vinyl adhesive paper or pvc coated magnetic material, so it really is just like sticking something to itself. I didn't get anything significant out of the E6000 glue to adhere to the silicon either, but I did get some fiber paper, aka rice paper, to partially bond by absorption to the setting silicon. The only problem is that the paper itself split apart once I attached sticky paper to the other side of the material. I haven't given up because there is a solution in here, somewhere, but I was forced to move on for sake of time. A medium quality bond is the best I can currently get with silicon and it needs to be done while the material is setting up, preferably in the first hour or two after pouring the rubber. My accidental success with the silicon experiments is when they pull apart my molds and pieces of the mold itself are lodged into the silicon. This creates a multi-color effect in the final piece, but I haven't bothered to make this consistent, again for lack of time. I have kept a couple of samples and they add a new dimension to the silicon as the final piece results, but it will take more work to finalize this and I am sure that I've seen stuff like this on the market already with all of the embedded silicon rubber covers that are made as decorative protectors for iphones. My latest set of test have been with making thinner and thinner epoxy pieces with adhesive backings. The final concept may be as simple as epoxy stickers, but my way of getting to that end is 'round about, as usual. I placed a bunch of epoxy into molds and with the left over epoxy I pre-coated a bunch of different materials, which are clear milar film, vinyl sticker paper, heat transfer paper for t-shirts, heat sensitive glue paper for patches, rice paper and regular sticker paper and some rice paper adhered to double sided sticker paper. Since Epoxy will bond to epoxy I figured that if I can adhere the epoxy to these materials then they would be the perfect medium for setting into the epoxy itself either coated or uncoated. The milar transparency and vinyl beaded up with the liquid epoxy and proved to be uneven after it set. I didn't test the bond, but if sections of the material are not set then it is like having oil floating on water and won't work in all areas. Plus if I applied this material upside down I would never be able to tell if it adhered to the material or not. The benefit of the rice paper and other porous materials is that the epoxy absorbs into the capillaries of the material itself and almost sucks the material into the liquid, or vice-versa. So paper based materials are good and the epoxy spreads more evenly when there are spaces to fill. The most interesting materials are the heat sensitive glues. I got encouraging results from the heat transfer paper and suggestive results from the patch transfer paper. I may need to work on my timing, but I liked the finish on the patch transfer material the best and the epoxy spread evenly and separated smoothly from the substrate. I wasn't sure about the temperature and the heat to apply, nor the presure, but I got medium results. Mostly I liked how evenly the material appeared to separate from the substrate and I think the other details like heat, time and pressure can be worked out. This means that I could make epoxy photo fresco patches, that once adhered to jackets, bags or sport shirts could last longer than the garments themselves.

Silicon Adhesives are EXPENSIVE, but nothing else works.

Silicon is a great surface and a super mold making material. The versatility of this product comes from the characteristic that it does not want to stick to anything. I love a great silicon mold because it also goes the other way in that most things don't stick to the silicon once it is made into a mold. One use for silicon has been pad printing, which is using a molded silicon shape to pick up ink and then with pressure the silicon will release the ink onto an object that does not have to be a flat smooth surface. I have been experimenting with making silicon based stickers and stamps, but the problem has been getting something to stick to the back of the silicon so that I can then stick the silicon sticker or stamp onto something else. Yesterday I purchased some silicon adhesive from Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond California, a well-know purveyor of all things moldy, and was surprised by the cost. A small tube of silicon adhesive was $11 and I mean a small tube. It had some reference to the active ingredient and I used the entire tube at once, but this stuff is expensive. I applied the adhesive to a vinyl sticker sheet, like bumper sticker paper, and let it dry overnight. The good news is that it seems to work, although I am not 100% convinced that the adhesive will permanently bond to the vinyl, I am going with the initial testing that shows a decent bond. Now I have been applying these small stamps with the sticky back on the back of phones and am using them as stamps. I call them Phone Emblems and will be launching a site dedicated to these products as they develop. The silicon has a high tech feeling and the detail is great, plus the silicon also works like a grip on a surface when you set the phone down. This could be considered and add-on for cell phones and for cases, as well as, a fun thing to have on a mobile phone which is just the right size for the backing of a stamp. I have had some mistakes in the past where I could not get the silicon off of a project piece and I am going to go back to that to test alternative methods of sticking something to silicon. I think that an adhesive sticker with more porosity will allow the silicon to dig in and set inside the paper itself which should work as a way to make the silicon bond without using the expensive glue. Also I have had some trouble separating urethane rubber from silicon and could see putting a back coat of urethane then connecting to the urethane may be an easier and cheaper process. One of the fun things about experimenting is when the mistakes of the past solve problems in the future. This makes even my seemingly wasted efforts worthwhile, if I can remember what the actual mistake was and why it happened. Better notes next time.

Adhesives and Sticky Stuff

Now that I have enough items that I am happy with I need to find things to put them on. Everything I made needs to be mounted or adhered to some other product to make it seem useful since the photo fresco items that I make don't have a purpose on their own. I have been working on putting the emblems on mesh trucker hats and that's worked out pretty well using E6000 glue and applying pressure to the item on the hat for 6-12 hours. Epoxy has also worked and the final effect is a sort of inset style with the emblem appearing to be pushed down into the hat itself which makes it look more official. Pictures to come. I am also testing the different glues that I have been using to stick these emblems on other things like phones, wine bottles and coffee cups. In some cases I see these emblems being used as car or skateboard stickers, but they have to be able to weather the elements. I don't think there is a problem with the weathering effects as that should only add to the character of each of the emblems, but the life of the product will only be as good as the adhesive that is used to put the items on a car or skateboard. I have been putting an adhesive backed vinyl sticker onto the epoxy pieces, which is the same quality of sticker that is used for a bumper sticker. I have also been painting on a pressure sensitive adhesive with a layer of adhesive backed paper that can be removed prior to the adhesion of the emblem to a surface. My epoxy emblems can bend with the addition of heat from the sun, hand or a blow dryer, so that makes it able to bend around a curved surface like a trunk lid of a car or a bottle. In the case of the coffee cup I filled the cup with hot water and applied tape around the cup to hold the emblems in place while it cools. Hopefully the curvature of the heated emblem will remain as it cools and then the adhesives can do their job of holding the molded shape to the cup. This type of emblem is not microwave safe since it has metal in the emblem, but I can make a batch of colored emblems or spray painted emblems to fix that problem if the adhesives work. My current experiment with these emblem stickers is on a wine bottle with the two types of pressure sensitive adhesives. I let the bottle sit outside for a couple of days and now I have submerged it in soapy water and am letting it sit for an hour to see if the emblems pop off. I've put a decent amount of scrubbing to the bottle and the paper stickers are slowly dissolving. Any emblem will eventually come off with enough abuse, but for normal wear and tear for an inexpensive easy to apply item, this should be a sufficient test. I suppose I should also freeze the bottle and then bury it for a few days just to give it a true measure of abuse. The final test can be to hand it to my kids, they can break anything.

The Mayan Calendar before the Mayan Calendar

I have been working on my casting techniques using the methods I loosely call "photo fresco" and have been converting my 2-d images into 3-d products. The process has been challenging, but in the back of my head I can't help but imagine the bigger picture problem that we face with the End of the World in December of 2012. As the ancient Mayan Calendar comes to an end the World is set to implode or explode. The face in the middle of the Old Mayan calendar is a Sun God of some sort and I am not an expert on ancient Gods, but this one is one of the best God's Ever and he is totally with the times. The relationship that I am finding with the actual face of the Mayan God inside the calendar and pictures of people online is similar in that everyone is sticking out their tongue these days when they take a photo. If you look at the Mayan God you will quickly realize that this isn't your typical stoic serious type of God, but a mocking laughing type of God who has just told a good joke, like the World is Going to End, ha, ha, ha. Following the good joke he sticks out his tongue. The Mayans didn't have cameras, as far as we know, so this face must've been a symbolic gesture that was significant enough to have it in the center of the calendar. Now, thousands of years later, every 15 year old boy or girl sticks out their tongue when they are having their photo taken. I'll post some photos to compare them, but it seems obvious that this God new what he was talking about. This analysis has been creeping into my psyche as I keep making these heads, like coins, whenever I have left over epoxy from my other pendants that I am making. I have made some magnets and pendants with these pieces and I need to finish them off so that I can get more of them in the store. Also I am applying some sticky back stuff to make them into stickers so that I can pass them out in the store in Los Angeles. Next I have to create a new version for the next Mayan calendar, but maybe it should have the picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue in the middle of the calendar.

Finally, products for everyone

I have reduced the size of my work into smaller, high definition pieces that can be incorporated into clothing, accessories and jewelry. As I have made these pieces smaller I have been getting higher and higher detail, to the point that my ability to capture photographic detail is now 5 to 10 times higher than what I can actually use or need. The higher resolution does come through as sharper lines in the final pieces, so I don't think it is wasted. I'll post some images of the final pieces soon.