Golden Digital Grounds

Barbara Jackson of Golden Artist Colors was the speaker at the September 2009 meeting.  Although I missed the last AFA meeting, there was a lot of good information that Gail McGlamery passed on to me for this post.  Here are Gail’s notes.  Thanks Gail.

Barbara talked about the company and its history, that it is run by artists, and there is a great attention to detail.  For example, on each tube of paint, when you look at the color spot to see the color of the paint inside, that is actual paint on the outside of the tube.  She joked you don’t need to go in the corner of the art store and open the tube because you can rely on the painted stroke on the tube itself.

Barbara described the various paint products and mediums that Golden has in its line as well as the purposes for which the various paints and mediums are best used.  She then introduced the digital ground clear and gloss products.  She reminded all that fiber is porous and something like foil is non-porous.  Digital group products are used to treat fiber so it can be sent through a printer to print photographs and photo images.  She showed several examples of the process, from linen to lamé.   She emphasized the importance of preparing the carrier sheet and demonstrated how to do so.  She also wanted to be sure folks were careful experimenting with their printers.

Some of the digital grounds cause a big change in fabric hand resulting in a rigid fabric.  GAC 900 was mentioned as something to look into for maintaining a soft hand on fabric.  Barbara encouraged folks to read more detailed information on how to use the digital grounds from the Golden website.

Soon after that meeting, Anita Mester, AFA Newsletter Editor Extraordinaire, forwarded a link to Linda Matthews’ website, Creative Textile & Quilting Arts, where Linda is experimenting with the Golden Digital Grounds on a wide range of fabrics.  Here’s what Linda told me in an e-mail:

I found in my research that most if not all users of digital grounds are multi-media artists and [they] tend to lean towards printing on stuff other than fabric which is not really suitable for inclusion in textile art, so I’m narrowing the field, but my results to date are really exciting as you’ll see in some upcoming posts.  I’ve also had such a positive response to this series (and it’s only just begun) that I’ll be putting together my own workshop teaching techniques for using digital grounds on fabric only.  I already do an image transfer workshop so this will be a nice addition.

So visit Linda’s website and see her results.