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Technique Tuesday!
Yesterday I showed you a collage piece from one of my art journals that used a ghostly-looking image transfer of a young woman. Some people ask why anyone would want to use a transfer rather than simply collage the actual picture or a copy of it into the work. The usual reason is because the artist is looking for that transparent, irregular quality which simple cut and paste cannot achieve. Look at the image again and notice how you can see right through the woman:
The finished piece
This piece was made with an inkjet printout on plain copy paper…nothing fancy, not coated paper or even particularly heavy. This type of transfer will give you the most irregular and ghostly results. In fact, the results are almost always a surprise!
Step by step instructions for image transfers with plain paper
Photo paper is another alternative for paper image transfers. You will generally get a transfer with much more saturated and even color than with plain paper. This method also reverses the image, so keep that in mind before you print out your picture. There are only a few differences in method from the steps listed above.
Step by step instructions for image transfers with photo paper
312 days ago
I remember doing something similar in elementary school. We soaked a 4×6 photo in water for a while until the plastic film the picture was attached to separated from the coated paper backing. Using tweezers we removed the jellyfish like material from the water and put in on a piece of construction paper we cut and decorated beforehand. After it dried onto the paper we sprayed it with varnish to protect it and hold it on.
The technique is interesting to transfer to an unconventional medium, but with any type of paper or transfer film you can fit into a printer its effortless to use Adobe Photoshop and change the opacity.
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470 days ago
Help! I just did an image transfer to canvas using Liquitex Medium Gloss & Varnish and my paper is stuck! I waited for it to dry then sprayed water on it again to try and rub some of it off but my image is coming off as well!! I have most of it off – but there is still a white film on my canvas. If I use the gloss over it to seal will the image show thru? When the image is wet it is exactly what I want it to look like but when it drys it is just looks like white paper. HELP!!!
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509 days ago
Hello,
I just tried the plain paper polymer medium image transfer method and it worked fairly well. But it only worked when I transferred the image to paper that had some substance and weight. What I would like to do is transfer images to rice paper (Sumi paper) for use in collage. The Sumi paper completely tore apart when I tried this transfer method. Any suggestions?
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547 days ago
Any brand of acrylic medium, Gina. Choose one that isn’t too liquidy, that has a bit of body, like a soft custard!
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547 days ago
Beautiful and I wonder what the international substitute for Golden soft gel would be…? Anything called soft gel?
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548 days ago
One thing that works well is the Tilano Transfer Kit. You can find a link to all of my transfer tutorials here:
LINK. The Tilano link is there.
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549 days ago
hi,How can one transfer onto a tile or stone? and also clay
Thanx in advance.
Priyanka
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595 days ago
Thank you for your input, Lakaya :-) That’s a fine technique when you’re looking for a perfect transfer. Many times though, I don’t want all the image to transfer perfectly, but prefer a tattered look. To achieve this, you rip up the image before it is completely dried.
I’ve never used mod podge for this, only acrylic mediums. But I’ve got a tutorial elsewhere on the site for making an acrylic transfer that is more like yours except that you paint on the medium in several layers and let it dry, remove the paper backing as you’ve said, and THEN apply it to your surface.
There are many ways to do transfers, and they’re all good.
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595 days ago
ummm i dont know if you figured it or not yet, but since i know the answr and future readers may be curious im just gonna say it…you paint the mod podge all over the image, position it carefully in place, roll over it with a rolling pin or burnish it as you guys put it…then you LET IT DRY, COMPLETLY, oncce it is dry, soak the item in water…hopefully overnight, then you rub the paper off until you can see the image. I did that to a vest years ago with a photo copy of a black and white print, the vest wore out before the picture did, and i machine washed it all the time. I am about to do the same thing with my new coat to ‘girl it up’ a bit. it works believe me. by the way my mod podge is gloss lustre if that helps you, i have never used matte so i dont know how that would work.
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648 days ago
I am so glad you have taken the time to make these tutorials for the rest of us. There are so many things I would like to try, and the interenet is so wonderful for sharing information
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690 days ago
[...] Paper image transfers – plain and photo paper [...]
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721 days ago
The second half of the tutorial above shows how to transfer from photo paper to another surface, but it’s photo paper that you’ve printed out yourself, not a commercial photo. I don’t know what you’d have to use to break down the coating if it’s a “real” photo, but I’d start with a good soak in water, using a photo I didn’t care too much about for an experiment, and then follow the above method.
An extra step you might want to add if you’re transferring to an uneven surface like handmade paper, is to give it a coating of Golden’s new “Digital Ground” product (in clear) to help even out the surface a bit and make it more absorbent than it might otherwise be. Here’s a link to info:
http://www.layersuponlayers.com/new-digital-ground-products-from-golden/
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721 days ago
What works best for transferring photos to handmade paper?
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738 days ago
Oh, I hope you’ll be able to do it, Jean! If you are still using magazine pictures, you might find that applying a solvent like acetone to the back helps the transfer onto wood. Here’s a list of some of the other methods we’ve covered here:
http://www.layersuponlayers.com/image-transfer-methods/
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739 days ago
Cyndi,
Thank you for these instructions. Forty years ago in one of my college art classes I used a medium with pictures from magazines and comic pages from newspapers and transfered them to wood. (Back then we did not have such things as laser printers or color photocopies.) Now, many years later, I have been searching for the instuctions and materials needed to duplicate that process. These were the first instuctions I found that seemed to cover it all. I think I can finish the project I have in mind now. Thank you so much! Jean
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821 days ago
You can definitely make a transfer to fabric this way, but the image will not hold up well if it’s soft t-shirt material that’s going to be worn. I’d recommend this method instead:
http://www.layersuponlayers.com/fabric-image-transfers-t-shirt-transparencies/
:-)
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821 days ago
Has anyone tried this plain paper method on t-shirts?
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860 days ago
That is exactly what I was going to do!..lol
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