For the last little while I have been thinking about doing some transfers with my photos, maybe even placing some of my own, mostly mouse drawn, digital images onto canvas. I’ve browsed through a few sites that offer digital printing on canvas but the cost was a little too high for what I had in mind; a lot of experimentation, painting, drawing, collage and what have you in and out of the image areas and maybe the odd outburst of the opposite of creativity if my canvas doesn’t end up being useful after all that!
So I searched and searched until I finally got my terms down to specifics and the search engines let me get past the commercial transfer paper sites and coughed up the acrylic gel transfer method, which after a little more searching turned into the just about any kind of polymer medium transfer method among others.
I found some very basic, but clear instructions for the gel transfer method at Golden, the caveat being that some experimentation is in order to get the results you want. There was lots of other good information on the site and instructions seemed if not always short, at least to the point.
My favorite, more detailed instructions were found at EBSQ Art, a site I think I’ll be browsing from time to time. When I see what other artists are doing I get inspired to do more and the information and instructions there are a wonderful bonus.
My first digital photo transfer is drying over night in the studio. Waiting is always the hardest part. . .
(PS: Now it’s Wednesday, April 29th and I’ve tried it out. Not bad results overall but there were a few things I’ll watch out for next time.
In the first picture I’ve rubbed the paper off the back of the transfer and I’m leaving it out to dry out a bit. I got wonderful soft, smooth finger tips after doing that! Maybe they should use that technique in the spa industry – they can call it paper rubbing.
I do think though that I’m going to try out different types of paper. Two things to watch out for. You want paper that holds the detail well but is soft enough to peel off gently after soaking. If it takes too much friction to remove the paper you can easily tear the gel layer.
I then dried it out as advised but did find that some of the edges got brittle and broke off so maybe not too much drying time in between steps. A few more pieces broke off during the application of the transfer so it would probably help to leave any trimming of edges until it’s time to apply the transfer as well.
The nice surprise after I transfered the image to the canvas is that a lot of the little bumps and tiny air bubbles that I couldn’t get out by rubbing or gently letting the air out by stabbing it with a pin (I love making art it’s such an exact science.) were gone by the time the transfer had dried. The shrinkage during drying seemed to work wonders.
If you wanted your image to lay anywhere over the edges of your stretcher bars I’d suggest applying it before you stretch your canvas. I just put a board underneath the area where I was applying the transfer.)