Digital Alchemy: Printmaking Techniques for Fine Art, Photography, and Mixed Media (Voices That Matter)

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