Digital Alchemy: Printmaking techniques for fine art, photography, and mixed media - Softcover

Lhotka, Bonny Pierce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0321732995 ISBN 13: 9780321732996

Publisher: New Riders, 2010

Synopsis

In Digital Alchemy, acclaimed printmaker Bonny Pierce Lhotka shows how to turn your standard inkjet printer into a seemingly magical instrument capable of transforming your printed images into true works of art. Using plenty of visuals and straightforward terms, Lhotka walks you step-by-step through over a dozen projects. Forget printing on boring old paper, in Digital Alchemy, you’ll learn how to transfer and print images to a variety of surfaces including metal, wood, fabric, stone, and plastic using the techniques Lhotka’s spent years developing.

If you’re a photographer looking for new ways to personalize your work or a digital artist who’s ready to take your work to the next level, you’ll find all of the tools, techniques, and inspiration you need in this book. Lhotka’s enthusiasm for experimenting with unusual printing materials and processes has led her to create new and amazing transfer techniques, including one that resembles a Polaroid™ transfer on steroids. She also shows you how to make prints using unexpected, everyday materials such as hand sanitizer and gelatin. You’ll even learn direct printing, the technique for sending your custom substrate through your printer almost as if it were paper.

In Digital Alchemy, you’ll learn how to:

• Transfer images to metal, wood, plastic, and other materials that will not feed through an inkjet printer
  

• Print directly on metal for a fraction of the cost of using a print service
  

• Simulate a print from an expensive UV flatbed printer using an inexpensive desktop printer
  

• Use carrier sheets and paintable precoats to print on almost any surface
  

• Achieve near-lithographic quality digital prints with transfer processes to uncoated fine art paper
  

In addition to the tutorials in the book, you can watch Lhotka in action on the included DVD-ROM, which has over 60 minutes of video footage where you’ll learn how to perform an alcohol gel transfer, transfer an image to a wooden surface, use your inkjet printer to achieve remarkable prints, and more. Simply insert the DVD-ROM into your computer's DVD drive. Note, this DVD-ROM will not work in TV DVD players.

About this title

About the Author

An inventor and innovator, Bonny Pierce Lhotka is a co-founder of the digital artist collaborative, Digital Atelier, whose members research and develop techniques to leverage digital imaging in fine art application. Lhotka organized “Digital Atelier: A printmaking studio for the 21st century” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum where she was an Artist-in-Residence for three weeks. She is a recipient of the Smithsonian/Computerworld Technology in the Arts Award and is the producer of educational DVDs from Digital Art Studio Seminars.

From the Back Cover

Edition details

• Publisher: New Riders
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0321732995
• ISBN 13: 9780321732996
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320