By Kathyanne White

Printing soft lightweight metals was the subject of a workshop posted on KathyAnneArt last month.  This was among the few times working with lightweight metals. The reason I created the workshop was for all the creators out there that don’t have art printers and want to be able to print digital alternative surfaces that are possible for their printers. I really loved the pewter, but it was a bit thick, so it didn’t really make it in the workshop in it’s original form.  It is important to stay within the perimeters of your printer so you have NO head strikes and you printer stays healthy.  I don’t go crazy to destroy my printers, I just figure out what they can do and let them do it.

Metals are really neat to print, they do take special care depending on their thickness and where they are going to end up.  Beverage cans still rate as my most favorite metals.  I only print my beverage cans on my Epson R3000.  It does a great job, never scrapes or complains and because I take great care with the attachment to the carrier sheet, it works every time.  Just got done teaching a workshop at TFFA in Texas and all the students followed the directions and all cans printed well.