I did some more experimenting today with the digital grounds products. The images above were all printed out onto Iridescent Medium. I love that stuff! If you add it to your acrylic paints it gives them a soft shimmer. So I thought a shimmery base would be pretty on these images. Click on the images to get a better look. The shimmer shows through better on the larger version.
It took a few trials and errors but I figured out that I need at least three coats of the Iridescent Medium to make it thick enough to peel off of the plastic sheet. Previous trials I used two coats plus the two coats of the Digital Grounds for Non-Porous Surfaces and it was still too thin to peel off of the plastic. Three coats made it thick enough to handle. One image did end up with a couple of "wrinkles" due to my error in placing it on the carrier sheet. I'll still be able to use it, though.
Then I had some stamped images and decided to print those out onto tulle treated with two layers of digital grounds for non-porous surfaces. I know tulle is "porous" but this stuff is matte finish and the other grounds give either a white background or a gloss finish; not what I want. These worked out cool! I printed them onto white tulle and placed the tulle over gold organza so you could make out the images better.
The scan really picked up the image above. I think I cropped it too close. It turned out really nice, though. My favorite is this next one:
She printed out just light enough where you can layer the tulle on any fabric and she really pops! These next two images were printed out onto clear plastic shelf liner. The first one didn't scan so well because it's a transparent image. Anything you lay it up against shows through very nicely.
Here it is placed over white silk. The colors in the image didn't scan very well but it did turn out beautifully.
I made up a new batch of experiments for tomorrow. They are drying right now and I'll let them get good and dry overnight before trying to print anything out on them. They are soft gel (gloss), Acrylic Grounds for Pastels and more molding paste with pearl mica flakes. I found out a painful lesson when I tried to topcoat the original molding paste sample. Lesson learned: DON'T gel topcoat the molding paste. I'll show you my sad result next time. :( SO, I had to make some more molding paste samples because I love the look!
Also, I don't know if you noticed the new sidebar additions. I'm taking another doll class. This one is more of a folk doll. It's a cloth doll that you then add clay to and sculpt the face over the muslin. I've made the muslin doll, stuffed her and gave her a coat of gesso. Tomorrow the sculpting begins. She's also drying overnight. So I've been busy today! I also managed to help hubby do a little yard work. Now I'm going to take it easy. Stay tuned...
I found another wonderful art community at a website called Digital Whisper (see sidebar for the link). It's a site devoted mainly to artists working with digital art. This is right up my alley! While I'm really starting to experiment in the more traditional art forms I will always love my digital art. And, as you can see from the last couple of posts, digital art can very easily be incorporated into your 3-D art thanks to all of the image transfer techniques that are available.
