What is going on?
sheer prints have a translucent quality, which is unique. Hold up against the light the print will be illuminated, on top of an other print it will be see trough. Its qualities open up new possibilities for graphic design. Classical structures like the two page unit in editorial design can be broken up and new layers can be added. If you still love print in our digital age, and believe there is more printing to explore than ever, start sheer printing!

How does it work?
For sheer prints you basically print wax on paper. Here you will find a method how you can apply the wax quite easily in your desired shape. This technic will first create wax paper which is then cut in your desired shape of print and later transferred to your poster or editorial by ironing. The wax paper is necessary to create a thin layer of wax, which will result in more exact prints and makes the wax less fragile to work with.

You need:

wax (eg. paraffin)
paper
baking paper
oven
iron
laser cutter
or normal cutter

Making your own wax paper

melt the paraffin in a big backing dish in the oven for 15min at 100°C. to protect you dish put a sheet of packing paper in it first

when the wax is completely melted, take the dish out and dip paper in the melted wax. make sure it is covered completely. it will take ca. 30s to cool down and dry then it is safe to lay on any surface without sticking to it.

Cutting wax paper to fit your design

as the wax paper is so thin, it can easily be cut with a cutter or scissors. if you have a laser cutter you can use these settings:
100% speed
50% power
0.3 z Axis

now you have your shapes for the wax printing.

the actual printing: transfering the wax paper shapes to your poster/Editorial

Take a sheet of baking paper, then place your wax paper shapes, and then the page it should be printed on, on top of all of this you should put another baking paper, to protect your iron.

Iron all of it on the lowest heat setting. the wax print will appear while ironing, stop ironing whenever you want.

That is all! You did a sheer print!