Playing with an impossible material
It was Friday night and I'd just bought a pack of watercolour paper.
The whole pack sat there asking the inevitable question:
What on earth am I going to do with this?
I took a sheet, prepared the surface and went looking for some random line art lost on the computer. A whale appeared. It seemed a perfectly acceptable scientific plan for a Friday night.
This isn't painted wood, two-tone plastic or a board bought for engraving. It really is watercolour paper.
Plenty of people say it can't be laser engraved. It's a useful sentence: saves tests, avoids ruined paper and ends the conversation quickly.
It also has the slight inconvenience of the whale existing.
Why paper?
I could have used wood. Or posted a photograph on Instagram and ended up with one less piece of wood in the workshop.
Wood costs money and has the potential to become a saleable piece. Paper is cheap enough to support a bit of play, a failed test and the occasional need to prove a point online.
Not every experiment needs to start with the most expensive material available. Sometimes the right surface is the one we can ruin without hearing our wallet scream.
“Can't be done” is a measure of time
In experimental work, “impossible” often means one of three things:
- it didn't work with the first setup;
- the material didn't behave like the usual material;
- nobody had the patience to keep ruining samples.
Paper doesn't behave like wood. It has little room for error and doesn't forgive excessive enthusiasm. That doesn't make it impossible; it makes it a material that requires the laser to learn some manners.
The recipe stays on the workbench
I won't publish the preparation, settings or sequence that produces this contrast. The public part is what matters: clean white lines, a dark background and a whale that looks as if it was drawn straight onto the surface.
It was a bit of play. But many LaserCrafts techniques begin exactly like this: someone insists something doesn't work and I feel the urge to check personally.
The laser doesn't read forums either. Sometimes that helps.