2016 #4 Through The Window {by Pam Thorburn}

2016 Topic 4: Image Transfers 

Hi everyone, It's Pam Thorburn from Waltzing Through Life here. 

I'd like to share with you this evening  a post about Tape Transfers. 

I love using image transfers in my work. My favourite technique is a gel medium transfer, but for this project I thought I'd try a tape transfer for two reasons: Firstly they are easy, but more importantly a tape transfer suited my vision for a still life with window. A tape transfer has a shiny glass-like finish, so I thought it would be perfect for making a window view.

Lately I have found myself very attracted to indoor still life scenes, particularly those done in a naive style. If you check out my pinterest board you will see what I'm attracted to, and where my inspiration for this piece of wall art comes from. 

So this is my finished piece:

Step One: The first thing I did was my tape transfer. To make a tape transfer you can use clear cellotape, the wider the better, or you can use sticky back clear plastic, which is what I used. Select the image you want to use. Mine came from a Marks and Spencer catalogue and is quite a large picture. Using sticky back plastic rather than cellotape for my transfer allowed me to use a large picture. If you want to use a large picture, but only have cellotape, that's fine. You will need to cover your picture with overlapping pieces of cellotape. Your transfer will have fine lines where the tape is overlapping, but that can add some interest to your transfer.

All you do is to cover the front of your image with tape or clear plastic, turn it over, and burnish hard on the rear, ensuring that every part of your image is firmly adhered to the tape. I used an old plastic card to burnish, but you can use the back of a spoon. Then place the tape into water and let it soak. After a few minutes your image will be wet through and you simply start rubbing the back part of the paper away, leaving the image adhered to the tape. If you rub too hard you will rub the actual image away, so proceed with caution. If you look at mine you can see white spaces where I rubbed too hard. However I was quite happy with that as I didn't need a really clear image, since it is a view through a window. I adhered the tape to the substrate with some matt medium.

If you are wondering about my substrate, it is heavy duty watercolour paper. When I am painting with acrylics I always have a spare piece of paper onto which I clean my brushes and wipe excess paint. I then use those papers to paint on later.

Step Two: Having applied my transfer I worked on the basic composition of the picture. The walls are painted in Mermaid  I used stamps from EEV03 and for the piece. The wallpaper is her diagonal line stamp using Sage The floor was painted with China and then given a wash of Nougat to knock back the colour a bit. While the paint was still wet I dragged a comb through to create a wood grain effect. The lower half of the wall was painted in Tinned Peas and Hey Pesto and for the tableI used Nougat.

EEV03

Step Three: Next I needed to make some collage elements. I stamped onto scrapbook paper using EEV03 and 04. The curtains were made from paper stamped with the triangle lined stamps.

EEV04

 

My favourite collage piece is the table mat. This is a simple Gelli print Smurf paint rolled onto the plate, then paint removed with the thick circle stamp from the EEV03 set. I just love it!

Notice here I have painted over the green on the wall behind the table the lighter Antarctic The darker green just wasn't doing it for me!

The other collage elements were the flowers. I stamped a range of flowers and leaves onto scrapbook paper. The flowers and leaves are all made from EEV04 with the flower centres coming from EEV03.

Step Four: The kraft coloured vase was stencilled with a Tim Holtz line stencil in Nougat, then over stamped with Ellen Vargo's lined diamond stamp from EEV03 using black ink. The fruit bowl is scrapbook paper stamped with the line stamp from the same set. I arranged (and rearranged) the collage pieces until I was happy with the composition and adhered them with gel medium. I thought at that stage I was finished, but when I stepped back to assess my work it all seemed a bit bland.

Step Five:  I decided that the piece needed some pencil detail to make the various elements stand out more. So using water-colour pencils I outlined parts to add some shadow detail and add a little dimension.

Here's a close up of the outlining and the shadows.

If you like still life art in a naive style and you're not confident with drawing and painting, then why not give collage a go? There are lots of PaperArtsy flower stamps which would be perfect for creating a vase of flowers. The other parts of the collage are basically just simple cut out shapes. And a tape transfer makes a great window in the background!

Pam x
Blog: Waltzing Through Life

Thank you Pam for allowing us to revisit this image transfer technique ... there are so many out there and it's not always the easiest technique to perfect. I love how the white spaces from the over rubbing add an interest to this beautiful image. The whole composition lends itself to the still life scene. Great use of the EEV stamps to create all the other fab elements ... so creative. ~Gillian

We would love to see how you interpret this Image Transfers  topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #4: Image Transfers, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Image Transfers link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, March 6th. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.