Digital Grounds – now available on DVD …
Exploring Digital Grounds on Fabric

I first heard about using clear tar gel as a skin for organza over on Marie Z. Johansen’s blog where’s she’s also doing some fun stuff with digital grounds, so I thought I’d give it a try as well.

Preparing an acrylic skin with clear tar gel can be a little challenging because of the thick and icky consistency of the gel, but being self-leveling, it isn’t so important to get an even coverage as with other gels or mediums because it levels itself and dries with an even and mark-free surface, and crystal clear transparency. The only thing I *really* didn’t like about this type of skin was the high gloss sheen it produced, however I found that you can tone down the gloss sheen by using a matte spray sealer.

On the upside, it does offer options for printing exceptionally vivid transparent images.

Using the same printer with the same photo settings, this is an image printed on untreated organza …

the same image printed on organza treated with digital grounds …

and the same image printed on organza with a clear tar gel skin backing, and then treated with digital grounds.

or to make it even more obvious

This technique is explored in more detail on my DVD Exploring Digital Grounds on Fabric. Or at the very least consider purchasing a sample pack of digital grounds to play around with. You can find out how to order digital grounds here.

This technique is explored in more detail on my DVD Exploring Digital Grounds on Fabric. Or at the very least consider purchasing a sample pack of digital grounds to play around with – it’s lots of fun. You can find out how to order digital grounds here.

First of all I chopped off an inch on the bottom and rearranged things to give it a little better balance. Then I added a traditional binding rather than the wrap-around binding. And finally found the perfect embellishment. I’m liking it a lot better now.

This is a little art quilt I just finished using some of Laura Murray’s beautiful overdyed kimono silks. I save every scrap and use them up one way or another; I simply can’t bear to throw even the smallest piece away. I like the simplicity of the quilt but I think I might add a little embellishment; maybe some beads.

This is a closeup of the buddha image. It was printed onto a piece of organza treated with digital grounds and you can see just how clearly the image printed. I then overlaid it onto a piece of silk that has a beautiful flower design on it. The design is embroidered in gold metallic thread and you can easily see the design through the organza. The whole assembly is a nice balance of image and design. The top background flower centered itself on the buddhas third eye quite by accident … or was it? The ribbon border was done using the decorative stitches on my sewing machine.

I have lots of smallish scraps of leftover silk so while I have them out I think I’ll do a few more of these little quilts – they’re quick to do and just beautiful to look at!

Some of you have asked how Digital Grounds works with non-woven materials like tyvek and lutrador. Today let’s look at Lutrador.

I like using lutrador for certain applications; much for the same reasons that I like to use dryer sheets. They both have a beautiful web-like texture. Lutrador of course is stiffer than a dryer sheet, and a dryer sheet is softer but with a luminous quality. So both have different qualities but share the web-like texture which I really like.

So how does lutrador perform in the printer with digital grounds?

Judge for yourself …

This image was printed with a piece of lutrador that was painted on the left hand side with a “wash” of white matte digital ground, and the right hand side was left untreated. The difference is quite noticeable.

White Matte Digital Grounds tends to give the best image reproduction on most fabrics I’ve tested but because it’s opaque, it’s not always suitable for every fabric. The advantage of using white matte as a “wash” is that if the “wash” is diluted enough it doesn’t mask the beautiful surface texture on certain fabrics and materials such as dryer sheets and lutrador, yet still produces an exceptional quality print.

You can see in this closeup of the treated side. that the image is crisp and clear, the colors deep and rich, and the web-like texture is still quite visible under the wash.

On the untreated side, the image is faint and the colors are washed out.

And this is a photo of the backing paper – worthy of a digital print all by itself!

So if you haven’t yet tried Digital Grounds you don’t need to run around town to find it coz I don’t think you’ll see it in the stores – simply click and grab a sample pack from DickBlick.com. It’ll be on your doorstep before you know it.

Digital Grounds Sample Set

I recently published a post about water testing using Digital Grounds which answered a few questions about water resistance when using Digital Grounds.

But just to clarify further, Digital Grounds is intended to be used for printing images on fabric that will be used for artwork – stuff that hangs on the wall or wherever else you hang your art and which will never require washing. It isn’t intended to be used for making memory quilts or other types of quilts that require washing.

If you want to print great images on fabric that will at some point need to be washed, there are a number of things you can try:

Try using pre-treated fabric sheets which are fabric sheets that have been treated with a special solution that provides a high image quality while at the same time making the print washable.

You can also pre-treat your own fabric with a solution of Bubble JetSet. You can find out more information about this on the CJ Jenkins website.

I’ve also had great success printing direct to fabric using my Epson printer with Durabrite inks. Durabrite inks are special inks that are both fade-resistant and water-resistant and they seem to hold up well for handwashing also.

So I hope this answers your questions about just *how* water resistant Digital Grounds is – shoving it in the washer is not recommended!

Digital Grounds Sample Set

Are you enjoying playing with your Digital Grounds? My obsession continues …

Continuing my tests with Digital Grounds, I thought I’d try it out on some hessian. I love the texture of the hessian and though that it might produce a nice print – which indeed it did!

The image below was created in photoshop and then printed onto a piece of off-white hessian that was treated with Digital Grounds. The Digital Grounds made the hessian quite stiff which produced a great surface on which to print.

You can see from the closeups below that the details on the image on the left (which was treated with Digital Grounds) are crisp and well defined while the details on the image on the right (which was not treated with Digital Grounds) are kind of fuzzy and my less defined.

And not only that, I thought I’d give my poor old printer a real workout and I backed the hessian with a piece of cream muslin to catch the leftover ink that would be printed out in the spaces on the hessian, and I ended up with a really nice piece of fabric with a lovely “negative” print on it which I can cut up and use as a coordinate with my main image. My printer didn’t quite have a seizure but that was sure a lot of fabric to go through in one pass!

So are you ready to give Digital Grounds a go yet? So far on this blog I’ve shown you a lot about what Digital Grounds can do, so just image what I haven’t yet shown you … hmmmm……

Digital Grounds Sample Set

Yesterday I posted about printing on texture using Digital Grounds and gave you a preview of part of a new art quilt that I was putting together using the beautiful *windows* image.

I finally finished the beading and this is the completed quilt. I like the color contrast and the modular assembly, and the beads add a nice sparkle in real life.

Closeup of the image texture

Working with texture has always been one of my favorite techniques. I’ve always found it challenging and rewarding to find ways to merge both visual and tactile texture into my artwork.

Continuing my experiments with Digital Grounds, I’m extremely impressed so far with the results I’ve achieved printing on texture and I’m currently working on an art piece using the wonderful *window* photo that I’ve used so much in my previous samples here, here, and here.

This is a piece of textured fabric I’ve used to print this current sample on, and you can clearly see that there is quite a lot of texture. It was a challenge to think I could get a decent print using this type of fabric with so much uneven texture.

But … voila! This is a closeup of the print and you can see the texture and how even the image transferred. Just beautiful don’t you think?

And this is one of the panels from the project I’m working on:

Digital Grounds – give it a try!

Digital Grounds Sample Set