I picked up some fresh Gum Arabic and Ethyl Cellulose to mix some ink that can release from fabric once it is saturated with water. The concept is to get an ink that can print like t-shirt inks, with a suspended pigment, and then the ink will wash out or release the pigments in the water during the rinse cycle. The problem isn't the binders, but the thickness of the solution of the binder. The goal is to have a thicker pasty type of mixture that can be screen printed. Arty at Douglas and Sturgess offered me a text liquid to add to my mixture which he knicknamed, Magic Shit. I tried it and although I haven't printed with it, based on the name it is bound to work. My daughter did this design to emphasize the qualities of Magic Shit.
The Next Level shit that I am going to do with this mixture is all too real, but I think I will divulge it here. Totally natural t-shirts that the design will wash out once it is sent through the wash. How is this good? Not sure, but it sort of doesn't make sense in all the right ways.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Hold the presses it's 2013; I'm Back!
It took almost a month of vaguely thinking about things to get back to basics, back to experimenting, back to creating. As Jack would say, "Honey, I'm Home." I have the tools and skills from last year's experiments to pick up where I left off, but something was keeping me from going there and continuing the mish-mash of half finished random test with durability and lightness in concrete and epoxy. There are also a couple of reports that I need to issue to confirm and deny the successes and failures of 2012, but reviewing isn't the most fun thing to do; it's just a filler. Now I have something new to work on and no better place to launch the concept than on this under-read blog. Drum roll please, Gum Arabic as a binder for pigments to print labels in t-shirts that will wash out after a douse in the ol' bubbly.
So What, Y-Que, you might say and I agree. It's not that big of a deal, but it takes me back to where I started with fresco which was to create a dry print that can migrate into wet plaster and thus create a photo-fresco with the pigments being embedded into the plaster itself. My earliest test on this subject was with Gum Arabic and papers that I could print with and later saturate and release the prints into freshly poured gypsum based mixtures that would harden. I've perfected those techniques and am no longer infatuated with them, but whenever I can go back to an original idea and find another way to use it, then I get a thrill. The thrill is from the fact that my earlier work seems to be worthwhile and not time wasted recreating the wheel, which by the way, I also did that.
The wheel. Last year I made some structures that I could fit together using old silk screens into a structure, sort of like a cell in a bee hive. I have been moving them around and watching them bang here and there through storms and such. I liked the shapes that I made because they reminded me of a dome house, but without all the complex joints, sort of a beginner's dome house. After realizing that I often had to move these by myself I was surprised that I was able to do so, because of the light weight. Next I put two and two together and that is that a structure built in the shape of a cell, like a bee hive octagon or hexagon, could be rolled into position somewhere quite easily, even up a hill or to a remote location that otherwise is difficult to reach. I haven't thought of where to apply this yet, but I am definitely going forward with a mobile structure that one person can move like a roll-away igloo.
So What, Y-Que, you might say and I agree. It's not that big of a deal, but it takes me back to where I started with fresco which was to create a dry print that can migrate into wet plaster and thus create a photo-fresco with the pigments being embedded into the plaster itself. My earliest test on this subject was with Gum Arabic and papers that I could print with and later saturate and release the prints into freshly poured gypsum based mixtures that would harden. I've perfected those techniques and am no longer infatuated with them, but whenever I can go back to an original idea and find another way to use it, then I get a thrill. The thrill is from the fact that my earlier work seems to be worthwhile and not time wasted recreating the wheel, which by the way, I also did that.
The wheel. Last year I made some structures that I could fit together using old silk screens into a structure, sort of like a cell in a bee hive. I have been moving them around and watching them bang here and there through storms and such. I liked the shapes that I made because they reminded me of a dome house, but without all the complex joints, sort of a beginner's dome house. After realizing that I often had to move these by myself I was surprised that I was able to do so, because of the light weight. Next I put two and two together and that is that a structure built in the shape of a cell, like a bee hive octagon or hexagon, could be rolled into position somewhere quite easily, even up a hill or to a remote location that otherwise is difficult to reach. I haven't thought of where to apply this yet, but I am definitely going forward with a mobile structure that one person can move like a roll-away igloo.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Hi Densisty Screen Printing will Answer all of my problems
Every year I visit the screen printing tradeshows to pick up some new techniques for t-shirt printing and my experimental projects. This year I didn't find anything new, but still seem some potential for refining my old techniques of photo fresco with relief mold making. There are some inks that can be made to look like metal and that can be printed with high density printing techniques that can emulate some other hi-tech methods of making original relief images come to life. Everything starts with a design and a cocept for the design, but the production techniques are what make it happen.
Large decals with some three dimensional or raised areas may be a good genre of products to create that can combine techniques with a product that can be produced by hand and have some market potential. For now I don't have a specific product or item in mind, but I did like my two part emblems that I made towards the end of last year. I used different materials for the base than the insert emblem and the final effect was a more complex piece than I had previously made. Complexity doesn't always make something better, but when different materials are next to each other it brings out the character of the differences. When I make a single homogenous piece there is always an explaination necessary to say what it is made of.
Large decals with some three dimensional or raised areas may be a good genre of products to create that can combine techniques with a product that can be produced by hand and have some market potential. For now I don't have a specific product or item in mind, but I did like my two part emblems that I made towards the end of last year. I used different materials for the base than the insert emblem and the final effect was a more complex piece than I had previously made. Complexity doesn't always make something better, but when different materials are next to each other it brings out the character of the differences. When I make a single homogenous piece there is always an explaination necessary to say what it is made of.
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