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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Digital Grounds -- Let The Games Begin!

I have discovered Digital Grounds! Yay!! Actually, I've known about them for awhile but have never really understood how to use them or what they were for. Thanks to Gail Schmidt at Creative Workshops (see sidebar), now I know what to do with these cool media!

Guess what the images above are printed out on? Don't know? It's a layer of molding paste topped with a layer of silver mica flakes! That's it! No paper underneath. Just the molding paste and mica! Cool, huh? This is all possible because of the digital grounds. Click on each image to get a better view. The little specks you see in this first image are small silver mica flakes!

What are digital grounds? Well, they are different media that Golden has come out with that makes it possible for you to print your images onto things you normally would never be able to print them on such...molding paste! Other things I'm experimenting with right now: printing onto two coats of gel medium, two coats of matte medium, peel 'n stick laminate, lace, sandwich bags, etc.

The sample below is printed onto two coats of Golden fluid acrylic paint! (copper) That's it! It's very thin, yes, but the "skin" as it's called peels right off of the plastic. No problems.

And this sample below is printed onto aluminum foil! It didn't photograph at all because of the glare and the scan doesn't really do it justice either. Suffice it to say that I love the result.

I haven't put the top-coat on these images yet. Golden includes two topcoats in the kit: a glossy and a semi-gloss. This is to protect the image. I just had to show these first experiments. I'm loving this stuff! It makes the tedious process of digital transfers seem so labor intensive!

Anyway, I'm experimenting with the gel medium and the matte medium tonight. I'll post those images when they are finished. The kit I spoke of earlier is one I ordered from DickBlick. They have sample sizes of all of these digital grounds and top-coats in a kit very reasonably priced for you to try out. I highly recommend them AND especially recommend Gail's workshop. She is an awesome teacher and shows you step by step exactly how to work with these grounds. Check out her class on Creative Workshops (see sidebar).

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