Wow, a new year and new images to print!I just had some laser-cuts made onto thin sheets of
masonite.
The laser follows a vector path from a digital image and
burns away the masonite or other suitable material, so
the artist doesn't have to grind or cut a matrix-- but of course, there is an extra cost to doing it via laser!
I plan to print these onto T-shirts, using my
lovely Brand etching press and water-base fabric inks.
The detail obtained by the laser cutting is very fine.
This will entail some careful inking and printing.
However, I feel that printing onto fabric with these textural images will be forgiving enough. I may still mix it up with screenprinting too.
At right is a preliminary ink-up of one of my images,
with a sweet new brayer I just received.
The masonite is inked up in red for contrast--(I like it because the building almost looks like it's on fire here.)
At the top is the drawing the laser cut came from.
This is a drawing based on my daily train commute on
the Chestnut Hill East Regional Rail Line to my neighborhood of Mt. Airy. The building shown is an abandoned factory, the Van Straaten and Havey Building, built in 1919, near the Wayne Junction station and the Wayne Mills textile buildings, (which are still in operation). I have been studying this building in passing for the past 3 years, drawing and photographing it. I love its beautiful crashed-in skylight, and its massive piers built into the spaces between the windows. It reminds me of a heat-sink with cooling fins. Actual prints onto shirts soon to come!
Postscript: As of November 2012, this building was actually torn down. I am so bummed out about that; but it was probably best, for the safety of the neighborhood at large..... and perhaps another nice
space will eventually be built in its place. However, now I am very happy that I thought to preserve the image and memory of this building in my artwork!!
