Howdy drydoc!
How do "Magic Paintings" (known as "Paint With Water"
in the US) books work?
Here are some descriptions of the process:
From the PeeDee Toys' "Bob the Builder Paint with Water
Book" description.
http://www.peedeetoys.com/22635.html
"Just add water with a brush to paint the colour pages.
The pages is this Paint with Water book are printed with
coloured inks that spread easily when water is added."
From the Prevent Blindness America's "Eye Patch Club" page:
http://www.preventblindness.org/children/patchtime.html
"Paint-with-water books are like coloring books. They are
printed with dyes that become colorful with water."
So, just dyes (and probably vegetable dyes at that, so as to
be "child safe" these days) are used. The ones that I remember
had a "halftone" (little dots) printed in the areas to be
"painted" and those dots were in turn the coloured dyes.
Could you make them yourself? Even though I didn't find any
step-by-step instructions on how to do this, I reckon it could
be done with a very "dry" vegetable dye, that is, a dye that
has been allowed to dry almost completely out, and then "dotted"
on to a piece of paper using a rubber stamp. Commercially, they
probably just do a "screen" or "halftone" print using a dye or a
water based ink, instead of the usual oil based ink, and doing
it "thick" or at least thicker than a usual printing.
You can buy some "Magic Painting" books at these websites.
The Designed4Kids' Party Fillers website has the "Mini Magic
Painting Book" assortment.
http://www.designed4kids.co.uk/Party%20Fillers.htm
"Mini Magic Painting Book - £0.25"
The Childrens Book Centre website has "Circus Fun Magic
Painting."
http://www.childrensbookcentre.co.uk/acatalog/CBC_Online_Catalogue_Interactive_Books_47.html
"Circus Fun Magic Painting.(Reference #circus)
Just lightly brush water over these fun drawrings
and watch the colours appear!" Price: £1.99
The Warehouse 2U website has closeouts incuding
"MAGIC PAINTING BOOKS."
http://vegiman.co.uk/warehouse2u/k44/img18.html
"Four 9x11 inch books. with 8 Magic Paintings in each book.
Just brush with water. and watch the colours appear. £2.25"
As for publishers/makers of them, there are:
Autumn Publishing publishes two "Magic Painting" books.
http://www.autumnpublishing.co.uk/detail.asp?category=Activity+Books+and+Pads&offset=40
- Magic Painting Animals 24 PAGES 280 x 210 £1.99
- Magic Painting Nursery Rhymes 24 PAGES 280 x 210 £1.99
There is W.F. Graham (Northampton) Ltd.
http://www.harrogate-toy-xmas-fair.co.uk/ip.asp?co=150
"Publishers of the most extensive range of quality, low
priced, mass market children's activity books including
Dot, Colour, Magic Painting, and Fun packs."
2 Pondwood Close
Moulton Park
Northampton
Northamptonshire
NN3 6RT
Tel: 01604 645537
Fax: 01604 648414
There are at least three other companies that appear to
produce "Magic Painting" books in the UK.
Award Publications Ltd
1st Floor
27 Longford Street
United Kingdom
NW1 3DZ
info@awardpublications.co.uk
020 7388 7800
020 7388 7887
I have been unable to get more information on these two:
World International Publishing, Ltd.
Dean
Search Strategy:
Google UK search on the keywords: "Magic Painting"
on pages only from the UK.
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22Magic+Painting%22&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB
Google search on the keywords: "paint with water"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22paint+with+water%22
If you need any clarification, feel free to ask.
Looking Forward, denco-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
denco-ga
on
17 May 2003 15:50 PDT
Howdy drydoc!
THe following is all guess work, as I imagine you would be one
of the first to try this. Due to the differences between the
process that (I am guessing) the publishers use and a homebrew
method, I reckon 1) it will ruin the inkjet printer and 2) the
results won't work that well, if at all. But, here goes!
For a homebrew method, you will want to go to your local grocery
store and get some food coloring from the baking (where they have
the cake mixes) aisle.
Then you would want to take an empty ink cartridge for a inkjet
printer you don't care for anynore (both the printer and the
cartridge), clean it with inkjet head cleaner, then fill it with
food coloring. Design a nice "Magic Painting" page and print
it out multiple times on the same piece of paper. I would get
some paper that was more porous than standard inkjet paper as
well. Think coloring book type paper from an art supply shop.
You can get several colors of food coloring, but yellow should
be avoided as it will most probably turn out too light to use.
I would "print" in pure colors as well, such as a section that
is filled with "red" dots and a section that is "blue" dots.
The publishers most probably use an offset press that can apply
commercial ink (or dye in this case) nice and thick on the paper
via a plate that prints directly to the paper. An inkjet printer
sprays the ink (food coloring in this case) in very small jets,
so hence the multiple runs to try to get it thick enough to "run"
when the paper gets wet. Let the paper dry between print runs.
It might ruin the printer because the inkjets are designed for
ink and not food coloring. That said, there is a U.S. company
that has supplies so that cake decorators can print out edible
pictures for their cakes.
http://www.kopykake.com/kopyjet.html
"The KOPYJETtm computerized cake decorating system!
Now, create beautiful personalized decorated cakes.
Easy as... Scan, Print and Place."
Their FAQ states they support only Canon printers, so maybe that
indicates that Canon printers might be more tolerant to using
food coloring.
http://www.kopykake.com/kopyjetfaq.html#1-2
"ONLY CANON PRINTERS CAN BE USED WITH OUR PRODUCTS "
If you wanted to do some "one offs" of a Magic Painting sort, I
would suggest you go to your local art supply shop and get some
linoleum block print supplies, and use the type of water colors
that come in tubes. It is pretty thick, and you could make your
own design with the block print, including areas that you would
then print with the water colors as thick as you want.
Search Strategy:
Google search on keywords: "food coloring" cartridge
://www.google.com/search?q=%22food+coloring%22+cartridge
If you need any further clarification, feel free to ask!
Looking Forward, denco-ga
|
