Lyn Bishop : Sharing Secrets

There are several new Digital Grounds from Golden that have hit the market, allowing artists to create printable surfaces from a variety of alternative substrates. I’ve recently had the opportunity to test them before public release and am excited by the results.

For several years I’ve been experimenting with alternative surfaces for digital printmaking. While almost any porous surface can be used as a substrate for inkjet printing, unless it’s been precoated for digital media the results are often inferior, resulting in dull, blurry images. And for artists looking to print on non-traditional surfaces like acetate, mylar or metal, the ink has always pooled, run or smeared on the surface. Applying a precoat helps to control how the ink sits on the surface of the substrate, improving color density, and preventing running or smearing.

The InkAid precoat medium paved the way for artists wishing to explore alternative substrates for digital printing, offering a clear, white matte and pearlescent precoat product for use turning both traditional and non-traditional materials into inkjet friendly substrates. For several years I’ve been using the InkAid clear product as a precoat for what I call ‘Luminescent’ surfaces – papers prepared with a pearlescent acrylic – before printing. I’m absolutely in love with this technique, as the prints exhibit a subtle glow and change their appearance as the light changes throughout the day. Without the precoat, the ink would pool on the surface and run all over the place. With the precoat, the ink sits firmly in place and allows the underlying pearlescent to shimmer through the ink, creating jewel tones that are really beautiful.

1. Preparing the underpainting with Golden Gesso

2. Painting luminescents on top of Gesso, next comes the Clear Gloss Precoat.

3. After digital printing on top of prepared surface.

Now Golden has begun to manufacture their own line of digital precoats, and in my testing, they seem to behave in a comparable way to the InkAid products, allowing the ink to encapsulate, and preventing it from spreading outward or soaking too deeply into the surface. It’s encouraging that a major mainstream materials manufacturer has jumped on this bandwagon and understands the potential for artistic advancement in this area. Their new line of products include a White Matte, Clear Gloss, and a Clear Ground for Non-Porous Surfaces. In addition, they have developed a Gel Topcoat with UVLS that allows for texturizing the finished surface.

All of these products open up a whole new world of possibilities for the artist looking to break free of standard precoated substrates, which are mostly paper and canvas, allowing us to work with handmade, or traditional printmaking papers or delve into non-porous materials like metals and mylar. It’s an exciting time to be working with digital media, as now our limits have decreased to mainly the capabilities of our printers. It still should be noted that rollers that contact the print surface, head clearance, and overall printer specifications still need to be understood by the artist to ensure that no damage occurs to our expensive hardware.

I’d love to hear about your experience with digital grounds, either InkAid or Golden. Please leave your comments here. Thanks!

Tags: Alternative Digital Printmaking, Luminescent Prints

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Alternative Process, Art, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.