Digital Prints

364
Mastering Digital Printing
Digital Mixed Media
For some, a digital print that comes out of a printer is not the end point of a process but
only the beginning. Three pioneering artists who have been pushing the digital edge the
longest and the farthest were founding members of Unique Editions, which ultimately
became known as the Digital Atelier: Dorothy Simpson Krause, Bonny Lhotka, and Karin
Schminke (see Figure 11.16). In keeping with their tagline, “a printmaking studio for the
21st Century,” even the organization of the group is modern: Each member lives in a different
part of the U.S. (Boston, Denver, and Seattle, respectively), and they come together
in person only for educational forums, workshops, seminars, and artists-in-residence
classes. Their work is in more than 200 corporate and museum collections including the
permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Krause, Lhotka, and Schminke are
well-known for combining traditional
and digital printmaking to
produce their own original digital
prints. Although they each use the
computer as a tool, their work and
media choices are as varied as their
backgrounds. It includes one-of-akind
paintings, collages, image transfers,
monotypes, and prints on all
kinds of surfaces as diverse as plywood,
silk, rusty metal, and handmade
substrates.
“When people see our work, they don’t think digital,” Schminke says.
Using a digital print as a base or ground, they usually end up with something totally
unique. Digigraphs, digital collages, and digital mixed media are some of the terms they’ve
used over the years.
The wide range of their work includes these processes:
■ Creating customized surfaces (see “inkAID Precoats”).
■ Underprinting digital images as a base for and overprinting images onto other media.
■ Wet, dry emulsion, and gelatin transfers (see “Clear Emulsion Transfers”).
■ Layering prints with collage and paint.
■ Printing on fabric (see “Fabric Printing”).
■ Exploring three-dimensional art including lenticular technology (see “Lenticular Prints”).
As three of the primary investigators and pioneers of digital mixed-media printmaking,
they finally published their own book about it—Digital Art Studio: Techniques for
Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials (Watson-Guptill, 2004). Rather
than cover territory that they have done so well in their book with illustrated steps and a
broad range of techniques, I will only hit a couple of the highlights of this fascinating subcategory
of digital printing.
Figure 11.16 Digital Atelier, from
left: Dorothy Simpson Krause, Bonny
Lhotka, and Karin Schminke.