I love working with my photos. When I found out about Golden’s Digital Grounds I just couldn’t wait to experiment.
The kind folks at Golden Paints sent me the three different Digital Grounds to play with: White, Clear, and for Non-porous Surfaces. Below is information from their website about each of the three products.
Digital Ground White (Matte) – A semi-opaque white ground suitable for printing onto a large variety of porous and non-porous surfaces. The smooth and absorbent surface allows printing inks to dry rapidly, making it an ideal starting product for artists exploring digital printing.
Digital Ground Clear (Gloss) – A clear gloss ground for use on most porous surfaces where clarity is desired to view underlying materials.
Digital Ground for Non Porous Surfaces – A clear gloss ground for coating non-porous surfaces, such as plastic and metal, when clarity is desired.
I first experimented with some handmade paper I had purchased. I wanted to see what different results I could come up with using white and clear on the same type of paper.
Golden has some great videos showing you how to apply this medium and taping the project to computer paper to feed through the printer.
I printed the same photo on both sheets of paper.
With Digital Grounds White my picture was nice and clear.
Using the Digital Grounds Clear I can see the fibers throughout the picture. I like that too!
The next project was making an acrylic skin to print on. An acrylic skin is made up of layers of paint that I painted on a garbage bag. Once it is dry the Digital Grounds for Non-Porous Surfaces was added. After completely dry again, the skin was taped to the carrier paper and printed. See complete instructions on this procedure here.
Here is my acrylic skin ready to go through the printer. Golden recommends taping on two sides before running through printer. I wanted to be extra safe so I taped all four sides.
I loved how this turned out.
Here I’m holding it. What an interesting texture to work with!
If you are interested in Digital Grounds, be sure and read the information and watch the videos on the Golden website. I am limited to some of the surfaces I can print on because my printer does not have a clear path. I tried printing on burlap by making a gel medium skin, adding the burlap and then covering with the Digital Grounds. It was way too thick to go through my printer. I will try that again without the skin.
I had fun playing with this and see several other experiments on other surfaces. I really like the results and am eager to try this on different types of fabric. And I love the acrylic skin!
For more inspiration and ideas on using these products, check out Marie Johansen’s blog and Linda Matthew’s old website.
I’ll post more projects later. Thanks for dropping by.
Disclaimer: I received these products from Golden Paints. The opinions expressed here are 100% my own. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review and received no monetary compensation.
That’s the first time I heard about Digital Grounds, it seems to work really well! I really like the printed acrylic skin, cool look!
Kristina recently posted..no news
I’ve never heard of Digital Grounds before but I really like the look of your papers! Thanks for sharing.
Connie recently posted..Dish Rug Tutorial
I looooovvvvvveeee the skin…thanks for showing us this….I’m going to Blick’s real soon! And with the textured paper…it seems to me that if you are going to use fun paper like that, you would want the texture to show through…otherwise, you get a regular print. Love both and how they work. I am sitting here running off photos of flowers and fabric onto cotton…which I will make into small journal covers. I have sold 2 so it must be time to do more! These grounds might help me have better prints!
Kathy, It is really neat. I’m going to try it on silk and some other stuff. I didn’t know you were making art journals. Cool! Hey, If you make a trip over here, I’d love visit with you again.
Connie, Thanks. It’s interesting stuff. Thanks for dropping by. Lynda
Kristina, Thanks. I like the skin also.