Monday, April 13, 2009

I received my March Calendar Girls postcard from CarolT a few days ago, and its brilliant. Carol had chosen the picture for March so I reckon she did have a bit of a head start on the rest of us and my only disappointment is that she didn’t include the chocs too. :)This is the photo for April, chosen by Susan. Yes, I know it has September on it, I’m not trying to confuse everyone – the idea was just to choose a calendar photo and not to worry about the month. To say this one has me flummoxed would be an understatement. Any hints on how to interpret this one would be gratefully received. Some of the Calendar Girls are already showing what they have created for this month and I am determined not to take a look just yet in case I feel the need to resort to plagiarism. *LOL*Amongst other things this week I have been playing with the JetFX Transfer paper from ArtVanGo. You won’t see anything wonderfully exciting here, just a few experiments to give me an idea of how I could use this technique in the future. This is the original image which I printed on to the JetFX paper.This image has been transferred on to silk noil.I ‘distressed’ this one before printing it by using water with a piece of wire wool. It was then printed on to Lutradur which had previously been sprayed with silk paints.I used a heat gun to zap it back. These are the close ups. It has been laid on a piece of black card to photograph it.I wanted to see if I could transfer a distressed image onto a foiled piece of Kunin Felt (I had visions of also zapping it back afterwards). I know the instructions say for light coloured fabric only but I thought that I would give it a try with the foiled background. Well, I tried a couple of times, but it just wouldn’t work. So I used a fusible webbing instead to foil a piece of Lutradur as before and tried transferring the image on top. Slightly better.And then I tried black Lutradur, but again, most of the detail is lost. So I zapped that as well!
I think I chose an image with too much detail in it. Maybe a bold pattern would work better. I’ll give that a try.
I kept all the offcuts of the paper as you can draw on these with different media and transfer the print to fabric.
These bits have been coloured with soft pastels which I blended with my finger. I like the fact that it didn’t transfer in one solid block. You can use wax crayons, oil pastels, charcoal etc. to colour your fabric first before transferring the image. Water soluble pastels & pencils can also be used on the fabric as a background. I used a copper printing block to take rubbings with wax crayons and oil pastels and transferred them to cotton fabric as well as Lutradur. I know I could get these images directly on the fabric one way or another but using the transfer paper heat sets the medium so it doesn’t smudge and is wash proof.
I’m still playing with the JetFX paper and also another product that Viv from ArtVanGo demonstrated – Transfer Solution.
I’m off to Atlantis on Saturday with Pat. Neither of us has been before, but judging by the photographs in their catalogue it is a massive warehouse full of art stuff. I shall take my ‘flexible friend’ with me but will still be limited to what I buy as I will have to carry it myself seeing as how my porter (aka DH) will be having a lovely day without me.

By the way, Ro Bruhn is having a very generous giveway on her blog this week - to celebrate a 'big' birthday. I suggest you pop over and leave a comment. I bought some papers from Ro's Etsy shop a while back and they are fantastic.

14 comments:

Ruth said...

Lynda,

I think that for your postcard, that doing a quilted piece to "suggest" the trees and then doing some of your painting techniques over the quilted trees would look great.

Heather said...

Carol T's postcard is lovely and very ingenious. I see those trees a irregular narrow strips of fabrics with herringbone stitch or textured strips between. Your experiments with JetFX are fantastic and even if you haven't achieved what you set out to do, you have a stack of fabrics to be incorporated into other pieces. Enjoy your trip to Atlantis - a suitcase with wheels could be the answer to your dilemma of carrying all your goodies!

JannArt said...

What a lovely postcard you received from Carol. Lovely colours.

I like the experiments you have done with the JetFX. I am interested to see how these develop and what you do when you use the Transfer Solution.

Have a good trip.

hippopip said...

Have a great time with Pat and do NOT lead her astray!

Doreen G said...

Great experiments as usual Lynda.
I have some of that transfer solution (different brand name though)but haven't used it yet (how unusual)

The Idaho Beauty said...

Thanks for the additional info on the transfer paper. As I was reading along, I'd make a note to myself to ask for clarification on something, and then the next thing I knew, you'd already answered my question. This sounds like really interesting stuff to work with. I particularly like your idea to make rubbings on it. I can see how that could have its advantages over doing a rubbing directly on cloth.

I do have one question. When you make the transfer, does all the color come off the paper or can you make multiple transfers, each one fainter?

BTW, your calendar picture for this month tugs at me - anything with birchy-looking trees you know! It closely ties into an idea I've been kicking around for awhile on the theme of "the road less traveled." Good luck in coming up with your own interpretation.

neki desu said...

What cool experiments. zapping stuff is better than eating chocolate. no wait, i'm confused.LOL!

neki desu

Val said...

Love your experiments Lynda - must really get some of that stuff when I'm up in Birmingham perhaps...

Shirley Anne Sherris said...

I'm sure you'll manage to carry plenty of goodies.
Haven't come across transfer solution - yet another to add to the shopping list. Just as well I live too far away from this warehouse.
Cheers
Shirley

Sandy said...

Busy again I see-always love to see your experiements.

sharon young said...

Great to see all your experimenting, Lynda, I'm always curious to see how well these transfer papers work.
Have a good jolly at Atlantis!

smarcoux said...

HI L
Just wanted to know if you will be around sunday april 19 .. if you are could pop around for a visit and I have a gift for you from my friend Laura who deals in paint.
Anyways sent me an email or post to my blog see what we can do .

cheers
Sandy

Shirley Goodwin said...

I haven't tried transfer solution before - looks interesting. As for the postcard - have you seen how Dijanne Cevaal dyes forest scenes? (link to her blog on my blog).

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