Texas heat, you are not my friend

PETG left in hot car. (The blue stuff is an anti-scratch film.
It's actually clear plastic when the film is removed.)

I had a very strange week last week. It was one of those weeks where it's two steps forward, one step (or more) back. I've posted before about what happens to a piece of thin plex (my monotype plates are PETG .03") when left in a hot car, and I vowed to never do that again. Well disaster struck twice in regards to my plastic. I had a 4 x 8' roll of it in my garage over the summer and apparently it needed to be kept in a temperature controlled environment. I took off the cardboard to find a 4' high tootsie roll of plastic.  

Master Framer Winner "Augie" Augustine
cuts my warped plastic for me.

My friend Augie (and go to guy for awesome framing at L'Antillaise Gallery) helped me by cutting it into lots of small curled pieces. If the plastic wasn't held on both sides, life was risked since it could automatically curl up at any moment. (I swear I only left Augie alone for a second while I grabbed the camera! Then I was back on holding duty.) Augie is using his glass cutter.

A friend recommended placing the plates under a piece of thick glass and putting them in the sun--and it worked! Basically the plastic needs to get nuked out in the sun for a few hours and the heavy glass keeps it from warping or curling during the nuking. It took about 4 hours of direct Texas sun, but it worked.




Unfortunately I have about 25 pieces to unfurl and I have a few of them pictured here... There is no lack of sun in these parts, so it looks like the sun will actually be my friend this week.

I'm starting on my Kepler/Brahe print. I have the sketch on a piece of tracing paper so I can flip it over and use carbon paper to transfer the drawing to my drypoint matrix.







So far I've completed:

1. cel-tec/sintra cut and beveled
2. monotype PETG cut and unfurled
3. sketch of drypoint transferred from tissue paper to drypoint matrix using carbon paper

In my next post I'll show my progress. I also found some fun links I want to share. It's been a great day working on my new collagraph/drypoint. Building a matrix has to be one of my favorite things to do.