The same products keep coming up in my efforts to make the ultimate decorative practical object d' art. I don't want much, but I do want something that can sustain weathering, withstand some impacts, be relatively small or light and be able to be made from photographic images without having to use heavy equipment, lasers and die cutting devices. Handmade cool stuff is what I am working on.
The latest addition to my arsenal is a urethane that I am not convinced is all it is made up to be, or that can be all that epoxy is, but the ease of handling of this urethane is worth testing. My initial testing shows that thinner layers of the use of this urethane instead of the thick poured methods that I have been using. This would mean that the time I save from the ease of use of a one part material, would then be used by putting on multiple layers and waiting for them to dry. To me, thicker is better as it provides depth and strength in shape and form and the thicker something is then the longer it would take to break down. This urethane may be appropriate for putting on top of things and not being the thing as I had hoped.
Accepting the layering concept as a practical fact forces me to think of my substrate or base for the urethane and verify the bonding between layers as the strengthening of the final product. I coated a patch of canvas with the snakeskin urethane and surprisingly it did not curl and wrinkle as would be normal with acrylic gesso. One of the benefits of using epoxy is that it does not act like water-based mediums when I am using it on canvas and paper, so I do not have to deal with the after effects of wrinkling and shape distortions. Epoxy and urethane all my substrates to remain dimensionally stable, which allows me to move to the next step of actually bonding or printing something onto paper and canvas without having to stretch it or bond it first to something stable.
I did not like the way the Snakeskin urethane handled the pigments when I tried to print it, but I did like the way the Tortoise Shell urethane handled the pigments and I was able to make a printable paste that seemed to render a decent print. I did not use a good screen, so part of the printing inconsistency could have been from the screen clarity, or lack thereof. In a mold the Tortoise shell urethane cracked, so what works well for printing may not work well for casting. If I can bring canvas back into the fold as a substrate with the flexible urethane and print with the Tortoise shell urethane on top of the canvas, then I have a good working substrate and printable surface to use for a working surface.
The problem is that canvas isn't elegant when it comes to making things and the texture isn't something that I want to hide. The benefit of printing on canvas is that it is pretty much the same as printing on t-shirts and it matches my skills. My next step will be to see what the canvas can bond to and the two most likely subjects are sticker paper and magnet sheets. The difference here is that I don't have to apply the canvas to the substrate first to make it work. By being able to use a substrate without adhering it first to a base, then I can work on items and later apply them to a base, given the canvas itself could also be a substrate.
Can the canvas be the exterior surface and the final product without just being a piece of canvas? Canvas bumper stickers? Canvas magnets? Canvas shingles? I have already made some of these and they don't seem as finished as a poured epoxy piece. Also I worry about the natural deterioration of canvas as an organic material and if the exterior is compromised the interior may weaken faster than plastic polymers, metallic substrates or even wood. Finally, then bond of the canvas to something else is what will make or break canvas as a product. Will it become one with a substrate, or will it simply be an additional item on top of the substrate that can be ripped off?
I've wasted enough time writing for the first coat of urethane to dry, I'll go apply another coat.
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