thermal prints sketchbook

I bought this little thermal printer on a whim from aliexpress, because they look great fun to play around, they are super cheap, the printer and 5 rolls of paper cost less than £10. Plus get a little hit of nostalgia, as it reminds me of the gameboy camera and printer I had as a kid - it’s got that same lofi appeal, but without being limited to 128 x 112 pixels

Obviously quality on these still isn’t great, but that’s part of the charm, digital photos are so crisp and sharp now, it can be fund to have a process like this that is a little rougher around the edges. Being able to print as many photos without worrying about cost is freeing, and makes the whole process really fun. It’s also great with kids, I have a toddler and he loves being able to choose an image and have it printed almost instantly, before he then proceeds to scribble all over it.

Anything that encourages me to actually print out images is great, it’s nice to have them off a screen in a physical book I can pick up off a shelf and have a flick through. The size of them is perfect for little A6 notebooks, which I can never resist picking up from Tiger or Muji, and again they are cheap, so there is no pressure, and I don’t end up overthinking the process, unlike a moleskin, where it’s constantly at the back of my mind that it cost the best part of £20.

Anything too detailed gets lost when using the thermal printer, I’ve found that simple scenes with lots of contrast work well, so these are all just simple scenes, usually close up little signs, cars, no big detailed lanscapes, as they just get lost in the lack of detail.

so these are mainly just phone shots of little everyday situations I’ve noticed, something that’s caught my eye, you know the kind of thing I see and post to instagram stories.