Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Watch: 12 Ways to Achieve Awesome Paint Jobs with Hydro Dipping
Make:: There are many names for this process. Marbling, dipping, dip art, hydro dipping, and more. While some aspects of the process may vary, all of these have the same basic core. A paint or colorant of some kind is suspended on water, then an object is dipped through it, allowing the surface tension to wrap the paint around the object.
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4 comments:
I'm not exactly sure how I can apply this to scenic painting. I enjoyed the article. The method and science behind it is fascinating and I connect on an emotional level with the guy in the second video, but set pieces are often too large and cumbersome to slowly dip into water. Yes, dip painting is cool, it's just not useful on a large scale.
However, on small scale it could be so much fun. I spent this last summer doing custom paint jobs on bikes and sail boats. I would have loved to try out this method for detailing on a rudder or a bike body. In fact, I might just try this out on my own bike. Since you use enamel paint in hydro dipping this method is perfect for those types of surfaces. Perhaps this method could be of theatrical interest for props painting. With the right color combination one could easily do a galaxy print or somewhat realistic fake stone. Anyways, I look forward to trying this out myself.
This article took me on a 20-minute long journey through YouTube, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's always neat to find new ways we can manipulate the hydrophobic nature of oil. I'm wondering if this method can successfully be used with porous surfaces due to the use of a large amount of water. Nonetheless, I'm trying to imagine a large-scale setup to be used for hydro dipping a floor or other large scenery item. I can imagine difficulties arising due to the very large size of container needed. The surface area of said vessel must be at least as large as the total surface area to be painted. Plus, there needs to be excess space for working. In the case of a floor treatment, one could probably use a 5'-0" x 9'-0" x 2'-0" rectangular box. This would be a very cool technique to see on stage. Perhaps more easily, this technique could be be used on small props. Either way, I'd like to try it out sometime. The resulting effect is very unique.
There is a beautiful video of an old man at a street fair somewhere in Asia doing a painting in water like this, only more precise. Instead of dipping the item in to the water to create a marble effect, he instead dripped his paint very precisely to create shapes. Using a brush or a stick or something, he then spread the colors around to make shapes, all while keeping it floating on top of the water. Using salt, soap, and other substances he made a backdrop for his painting, and which each successive layer the picture became more and more clear. Finally, instead of dipping the paper into the mixture, he laid it very carefully across the top, and created a painting this way. The resulting painting was very unique. I wonder if there is a way to combine his method and the method demonstrated in the article to create something a little more intricate than the marbling?
Oh cool! Whenever I see an article about hydro printing, it always seems like a really cool technique, and very useful if you have to appropriate infrastructure to design and make your own printing sheets. If people don’t have those things, you can buy a few pre-made patterns for things, but you are confined to those, and cant even choose your own colors. Although I have doubts about the permanence and quality of the spray paint processes shown here, I’m excited about at home DIY hydro printing in a way that you can design. What I will really be looking for to come out in the future is a blank sheet of the clear material that I can put into my printer at home and print my own graphics onto the premade stuff, then apply them to parts ive made. Im not sure if this is possible with common laser printers and ink jets, but I hope it is. Only once individuals can create their own graphics on the fly do I think hydro printing will be a tool common to see in theater prop shops.
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