Finished Art Journal Page and a bit about Casein paint

A couple of posts ago, I detailed my go-to art journal background technique.  Here, I wanted to show you the finished page:

Ok, so barring that her hair is totally, totally off, I really love how the whole page came out.  On the recommendation of a friend (Zura at CreativeClown.com), I decided to sketch her out on the right, and then paint over her with titanium white, to give me a blank white surface to work on.  But, I also happen to have a tube of Titanium White Casein paint by Shiva (recommended by Amy over at Flutterbye Art), so I thought I'd try that, and be able to test it out at the same time.

Casein (pronounced kay-Seen, as my art dealer told me - and by that, I mean my art addict dealer at H. R. Meininger's, the local art supply store) - is a milk-protein based paint.  We're talking old school here - ancient Egyptians used to use this kind of paint.  It dries to a wonderful matte finish.  From what I had read, over time, it will become permanent.

What I didn't realize is that "over time" means it takes a while to dry to the point that it's not rewettable.  Oh, don't get me wrong - it feels dry, it looks dry - but woo-hoo!  You can rewet it and move it around, even after it's dry.  It behaves a bit like acrylic paint, except it's matte.  It behaves a bit like watercolors and gouache, except it's really opaque.  It behaves a bit like oil paint, except it's not quite as "movable" as oil paint is.  It's just it's own medium.

So, I painted the underpainting white, redrew in my girl, and then went over her with the new watercolor crayons that I got from Dick Blick.  I attempted the watercolor crayons in layers, and that's when I discovered that the white Casein paint will re-wet and move around again when water is applied.  Which is actually really cool.  For my next portrait, I'm going to try the Casein white underpainting again, but do all the shading at once with my watercolor crayons, and then wet the whole thing with my waterbrush.  See if the shading is a bit more smooth.

Oh, and the Casein totally sucked up the water-soluable dye inks I'd sprayed underneath (the Dylusions in Bubblegum Pink).  Meaning, it pulled the ink right on up into the white, and where I re-wet it, actually brought pink into the portrait.  Not bad, but it did happen.  Just an FYI.

Also - the Casein paint from Shiva totally smells like Pine-sol.  I think it's an additive to prevent mold or something, because it is a milk-based paint.  But still really cool for playing around.

Also, also - if you order the color "Cocoa" from Dick Blick, in the Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons, you will get a color called "Dunkelbeige".  It's not a mistake - they're the same color number.  But, yeah, I'd call Dunkelbeige "Cocoa" any day of the week.  Just try saying it out loud and not giggling - I dare ya. :D

Fun with Dick Blick - Experiment Time!

Julie Prichard of The Land of Lost Luggage held a giveaway last month for her newsletter subscribers, and woo-hoo!  I won!  It was a gift certificate to Dick Blick, and I gleefully spent it last week.  If you aren't signed up for Julie's newsletter, get on over there.  She is an absolutely wonderful teacher of online mixed-media classes - I took her Art Journaling Super Nova class, Part 2, a couple of years ago, and was so impressed with how available she is to her students.  The content was fabulous and I learned so much.  You need to know what she's up to.

Anyways, here's what I got from Dick Blick (thank you Julie!!):

• Dick Blick Liquid Watercolor in Metallic Gold
• Strathmore Mixed Media Paper, 140 lb, 11" x 14"
• Loew-Cornell Fine Painting Pen
• Letraset Aquamarkers - Set 2
• Various Caran D'Ache Neocolor II Watercolor Crayons - some assorted browns, to round out my colors for shading faces

I'm linking to all this stuff at Dick Blick, because I know you can get it there.  I'm not an affiliate or anything - just want you to be able to see what I'm talking about.

First, holy cow, the Liquid Watercolor!  Forget Glimmer Mists, forget Perfect Pearls - I have found my gold spray ink!!  It is a true metallic gold, shimmery and bright.  It's relatively thick, and I found that I had to add equal parts water to watercolor in my spray bottle, to get it to spray as a mist - otherwise, it was coming out as a steady stream.  It is just lovely - of course, the shimmer won't show up on the scanner, but trust me, it's shiny.  Also, my theory is that because it's watercolor, it won't clog up the spray bottle like acrylics will.  I will let you know after it's been sitting for a bit.

Next, let's talk about the Strathmore Mixed-Media paper.  I've heard rave reviews of this paper from Samantha Kira - she shows in one of her videos how it remains flat, even with all of her paint layers (and that's just a miracle in my book - a paper that remains flat under mixed-media duress?  No way!).  I was excited to see how this paper held up.

It looks a little like cold-press watercolor paper - the surface is slightly textured, but not as textured as most watercolor papers.   I painted a section with Martha Stewart Gesso, another section with Golden Soft Matte Gel, and then left the last section plain.  I used some of my new toys over the top - the watercolor crayons, the Letraset Aquamarkers, and then the Fine Painting Pen.  I also used plenty of water as part of my tests.  Here's the results (click on image to enlarge):

The paper slightly curled at the corners where I laid down the gesso, but otherwise, it's flat as a pancake.  I couldn't believe it - even where I added water to the watercolor crayon and marker, it stayed flat!  

I think, since it curled slightly with the gesso (and I do mean slightly), it might curl up some with acrylic paints.  But I'll have to test that out when I make an art journal out of the pad.  I would have gotten the actual spiral pad of Strathmore Mixed-Media paper, but they perforated the pages in those, and I know I'd have pages falling out all over the place.

As for my new Neocolor II watercolor crayon, it behaved as I expected it to.  It's more "slidey" over gesso and gel medium (it moves easier with water) than on plain paper.  What I was really interested in was the color.  It's called Beige, but the crayon looks pretty gray to me.  The color turns out to be a grayish brown when water is added.  Sigh.  I was looking for a Titan Buff kind of color, and this is not it.  Oh well, it will be great for shading faces.

Next - squeee!  The Letraset Aquamarkers!  Rhomany of Rhomany's Realm recommends these markers (and she's not a brands kind of person, so if she recommends a product, she's got good reasons).  I was so excited to try these out.  They're watercolor-esque markers, meaning, water will move the pigment.  Rhomany had said they behave in an interesting way over gesso, and she's right.  The pigment moves some over gesso, while still maintaining the original marks.  In my test, you can see where I colored with the fine tip, the broad tip and then the broad tip again, but with water brushed over it.   Over gel medium, they behave more like a true watercolor than over the gesso (which makes sense, gel medium being more plastic than gesso).  On the plain paper, the pigment absorbs more into the paper, but is still slightly activated by the water.

I can easily see these markers going into my portrait arsenal, for easy shading and blending.  They also work over acrylics and gesso, so I can use them for writing and doodling over backgrounds.  

By the way, these are not brush-tip markers - they have a firm, felt-tip point to them.  And, considering that these are water-based, I doubt they're permanent when dry (just something to consider for those that like to layer).  Also, for some reason, the fine tip seems to lay down a brighter blue than the broad tip.  Can you see it in the photograph above?  I can't for the life of me figure out why that would be.  Any ideas?

Now, for the piece de resistance!  The Loew-Cornell Fine Painting Pen - I am in love.  It's a metal contraption (for lack of a better word), where you can add inks or paints to the well, and the ink/paint comes out of a fine point on the end.  No more messing around with a fine brush for details or writing.  I can just add some fluid acrylics into the well of this pen, and voila!  Details!  In any color I want!  

I found that with fluid acrylics, it's best to add just a touch of water before adding it into the well of this pen - otherwise, there's a lot of tapping involved, to get the paint to come out.  Clean-up is a cinch (just rinse it out with water), and it even comes with a fine-needle cleaning tool.

Thank you again, Julie, for my fun time at Dick Blick!  I love being able to test out new toys!

Art Geeks - My Favorite Background Technique

This last week, Gulfsprite (aka, Christy Sobolewski) posted a video on YouTube for the Art Geeks, detailing her go-to background technique.  It's a question that's come up in the Art Geeks Facebook Group - what are your favorite background techniques?  What technique do tend to do the most?  And would you share your technique, for those that are new to art journaling?

I answer a resounding "Yes" to that last question!  What I do is not super-original, but it's what I tend to do the most.  It's actually very easy, and incorporates my favorite play items - namely, paint, spray inks and collage.  It gives a very layered look, without spending hours on it.  This type of background gives me plenty of room to either work on a portrait, or do a lot of writing.

So, here's where we start - my blank page:

I put masking tape down the center, to help protect the spine and give it some strength.  As this is an altered book art journal, I tore out every other page, to give the book some room for my layered pages.  I taped where a page had been torn out.

Next, I picked three colors of craft paint, and just painted swatches of color.  I scrub the colors in with my brush, so that it feathers out at the edges.  I use cheap craft paints, Martha Stewart paints, Golden paints - for me, it's not about the brand, it's about the color.  I will say that I love how craft paints give a matte, chalky finish, and prefer them for my art journal (they're easier to write over, too - glossy paints are pen killers).

Now it's time for the spray inks.  I have a variety of stencils, and am always looking at anything with holes in it as a possibility for spraying.  This stencil is a piece of die-cut scrapbook paper (found in the specialty scrapbook paper section of Hobby Lobby).  With paper stencils, it's important to lift them up right away after spraying - otherwise, they will become a part of your background, stuck forever.  

First, I sprayed Tulip Fabric Paint Spray in White (it's wonderful!  It's an opaque white and is a dream to work with), then immediately layered that with Dylusions Spray in Bubblegum Pink.  I sprayed randomly, but focused the color in the blue and green areas (as the pink wouldn't show as well over the baby pink paint).  Then I grabbed my Tulip Glitter Paint spray in Red and sprayed over the whole stencil.  

I love how this came out!  You can't see it in the picture, but it's very glittery.  Now, it would be easy and quick to just stop right here.  And sometimes, I will stop here, because I love the background as is.  But I also love collage, so I decided to add some into the lower left-hand corner.

There's usually no rhyme or reason to what images I choose to use in my collages.  I have several Zip-Loc Freezer bags, filled with scraps of papers, separated into categories that makes sense to me (neutrals, colors, images, etc.).  I just grab my bags and start picking out papers.  I also tend to collage in a square format.  Squares and rectangles really appeal to me, and so that's how my collages are shaped.

I used Matte Gel Medium to glue down this collage, but I've also used Matte Medium, Collage Pauge, Decopauge, and Mod Podge (in Matte - the Glossy version will make your pages stick horribly).  Basically, whatever's on sale (or whenever I have a coupon).  There are blank areas on the collage that I'll probably use later as a journaling spot, and I can doodle and color around the images of the flower and the camera.  The area on the right is ready for journaling or a portrait, which is what I've been practicing lately.

Sometimes, I will add paint over the collage - usually I will brayer over the whole page in a new color, or in white.  The result is a cohesive page, with lots of layers peeking through.  Other times, I'll get my stamps out, and stamp over a very neutral collage, as a focal image.  It all depends on my mood.

Lastly, I've added a simple border on the bottom.  I just like how a border contains a page.  It's that square/rectangle thing again.

And that's it!  This is my go-to way of doing backgrounds for my art journal.  If you're new to art journaling, I hope this gives you some ideas for ways to use your fun art supplies.

My Book House - Altering Books for Art Journals

I was at the library last night, turning in my overdue books and paying off my fines.  My library has a "Friends of the Library" area, where people donate books, and then the Friends sell them, to help support the library.  And lookie what I found!

They're called "My Book House", and from my Google learnings, I have found that this is 11 volumes of a 12 volume set.  I didn't see Volume 12 at the library, but I'm going to go back and look, in case it's been misplaced.  They were edited by Olive Beaupre Miller, and each book contains children's stories, poems and illustrations.  As you go through each book, the stories become progressively more challenging, to track a child's reading development.  They are gorgeously illustrated.

The first thing I saw, when I saw this set, was the beautiful pastel colors of the covers, and my first thought was to have them sitting on my shelf, each one altered into an art journal.  An 11 volume art journal, if you will.

However, then I went and looked them up on Google.  I always do this with old books, just to make sure I'm not altering some rare, one-of-a-kind book that people want for ridiculous sums of money.  

Sigh - and what did I find?  That these books are worth something.  Not a lot - these are reprints of the first "My Book House" 6-Volume set that was originally published in 1920.  But a 12-volume set of this 1971 reprint, in good condition, goes for about $75 on Amazon.com.

This put me in a quandary.  Usually, I pick up old books because I like the cover, or the title is clever, or the paper inside is thick and a little bit toothy.  But they never turn out to be rare, or worth anything, other than maybe $2 at Alibris.  So, I alter them with zero guilt - no one else wants the book, so what's wrong with me altering it?

And this is the argument I use with people that freak out over people altering books - what's wrong with re-purposing a book that no one else wants, into something the artist will enjoy and use?  I don't think books are sacred, unless again, we're talking about rare first editions and such.  They are meant to be enjoyed, in whatever format that happens to be, reading and/or altering.

But in this case, these books turn out to be beloved by many, and are worth something to other people, as they are.

So, I've had to make a choice here.  They are worth something to me, as alterable books, and I want to use them as art journals.  I want to see them on my shelf, and know they contain my journey as a person and artist.  But, they are also worth something to others, as nostalgic reminders of childhood stories, or as something to be given to their children and grandchildren to enjoy.  And I've decided that what they are worth to me, as an artist, is more important than what they are worth to a stranger who may pay that $75 for what I've got.   I've decided that being worried about their monetary value to someone else is pretty materialistic, and I'm choosing the aesthetic route.

As an art journaler, what would you do?  Would you sell the books to someone else, just because someone might be willing to pay something for them?  Or would you do as I'm going to do, and alter them to your heart's content, because you want to?

I'm back again - Oil Pastel Review

So, as I said in my last post (over a year ago - whoa!), I've been working more on art, and less on product comparisons.  I've finally gotten brave with sharing my art, over on Flickr, and with various mixed-media art groups I'm a part of - like The Sisterhood of the Book (Effy Wild's Book of Days program).  I've even expanded out of my art journal, and onto canvas.  

I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day, and she suggested that if folks are wanting to share their stuff, they might as well get a blog.  And I realized "Hey!  I already have a blog!  That's what I should be doing!".  So, here I am, ready, finally, to share my art and process and the whole she-bang, with all of you.

But first, I've got to do a product review.  I mean, I have to - it's been waiting to spill out of me for days.  I want to talk about oil pastels.

Now, as a disclaimer, I am not an artist who knows the ins and outs of oil pastels.  In fact, I had some for a long time, and had no idea what to do with them.  Yes, they're pretty and smooshy, but in art journals, you can't write over them (unless you use a Sharpie Poster Paint pen - Oil-Based - but that's another post).  

Oh ho, but then along came Rhomany, and her live UStream class, about using oil pastels as a final layer of color in portraits.  And all I can say is "LOVE!!".  I am smitten with them, and how blendy and smooth the finished product turns out.  I mean, just look at how smooth my blue woman came out:

So, I wanted to share with you all a little test I did of the different oil pastel brands I have, and give you a rundown of what I think.  In case you want to try Rhomany's method.  And I think you do - yes, yes, you do.

Here's the image of each of the oil pastels I ran a test on.  I scribbled over the swatch area, and then on the right side, blended it out with my finger, to show you the smushability (is that even a word?)  I did them all in peach flesh tones, because I only have one Sennelier oil pastel, and it's a peachy flesh tone.  Trust me, if you've seen how much Sennelier's are, you'd only buy one at a time, too (mine was $3.50 for 2 inches of oil pastel).

1.  Sennelier - These are the creme de la creme of oil pastels.  Creamy, ultra-blendable, rich pigment.  Luscious to work with.  However, super expensive.

2.  Crayola's Portfolio Water-Soluable Oil Pastels - Very creamy - about as creamy as the Sennelier.  As you can see, not as pigmented as the Sennelier, but definitely not as expensive.  I got my set at Staples for about $10. They have the added bonus of being water-soluable, so you can go over them with a waterbrush and make a watercolor effect.  However, they only come in 24 colors.

3.  Crayola Oil Pastels - Yup, Crayola.  I am falling in love with Crayola products.  These aren't half-bad, for the set of 28 I got.  I used both the Crayola and the Portfolio oil pastels on my blue girl above, and really like the blendability and color I got from them.  And, they were only $5.50 at my local Michael's.  

4.  Loew-Cornell Oil Pastels - I bought a set of these at Michael's over 10 years ago.  They're still laying down a rich layer of color.  And before you think I'm a total art supply junkie, I bought the Crayola Oil Pastels to replace these.  After 10+ years, they're a bit dry and I have to really smash them down to lay down color.  Makes it hard to work with them.  But, if you can find them, they're inexpensive (I think I paid $10 for the set of 36) and obviously last quite awhile.  If I'd found these, I would have bought them again, instead of the Crayola.

5.  Cray-Pas Junior Artist - Ok, seriously, don't even bother with these.  I bought this set to replace the Loew-Cornell's, too, last year, when I took Pam Carriker's free online mixed-media class for Strathmore (it was a great class, by the way, and she's uploaded all 4 lessons to her YouTube channel - here's lesson 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3eio-z-OQI&feature=plcp).  When I went to do her technique of blending the oil pastels, I rubbed these oil pastels right off of the page.  I've tried them on all kinds of paper, with gesso and without, and nope - if you want to blend them, you will rub them off.  About $7 for the set of 50, looks really yummy in the packaging, but they're just horrible.

I know that Cray-Pas makes a set of oil pastels called "Expressionist", that are supposed to be much better.  I just didn't want to invest the $20 in the set of 48 at my local art supply store.

So, my recommendation is, if you want to just try oil pastels, to see if you'll like them, then get a set of the Crayola Portfolio Water-Soluable Oil Pastels.  Personally, I'm using those, in combination with the Crayola regular set, on my portraits.  If you get serious about it, then yes, Sennelier is worth the investment.  I've also heard good things about Pentel oil pastels - that they're about in the same league as the Crayola and Loew-Cornell ones.  There's a wider range of colors with the Pentel ones, too (sold at Hobby Lobby).

So, thanks for stopping by, and I'll be seeing much, much more of you in the future!

A Little Art Journal LOVE

ATTENTION: If you subscribed to this blog because of the experiments I was doing, I just want to warn you, this isn't an experiment post (well, unless you consider art journal pages to be experiments, which, I do). It's an art journal page post. Just didn't want you to get to the end of this post and go "Hey, where's the experiment?". :D

Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio is hosting an art journal LOVE party this week, not only in honor of Valentine's Day, but as a celebration of when she kicked off Art Journal LOVE Letters (her art journaling online workshop), this time last year. To participate in the party, head on over to her blog by clicking on the pic below:



I realize this blog post has nothing to do with experiments - at all. I haven't done a proper experiment in almost a year, and the last post I did was after another year hiatus. I'm thinking I'm done with the experiments phase of my creative development - at least, on a grand scale.

Know what happened? I actually started DOING art, instead of just experimenting with art supplies. And I gotta tell you, I'm so grateful for all those experiments, because those were my baby steps, my way of getting over the paralyzing FEAR over doing something creative. I have a ridiculous streak of perfectionism, and while I mooned and pined and wished I could make beautiful art journal pages, every time I'd pick up a brush, I'd just about hyperventilate from fear. Fear that it wouldn't look good, fear because I don't know what I'm doing, fear of people pointing and laughing (even if I never showed another soul on this planet - no, fear is not rational), fear of the word "art". My fear/perfectionism usually manifests in a "Why bother?" attitude, as in "It won't be good/better/the best art journal page to ever exist, so why bother? You will FAIL!!"

Nice voice, eh? Do you have one, too? If not in art, in other areas?

So, what's a left-brained girl to do? Fall back on her scientific roots and experiment, that's what. Taking online classes definitely helped, too. Uploading my work into those online classes - yup, that started taking the fear down a peg or too. And having the loving support of an artist friend, who frequently reminds me that this is about the FUN of it all, not the outcome, well, that's been absolutely vital and precious to me.

And somehow, in getting to know all of these wonderful materials, in learning and experimenting, the courage to just begin came through.

I realized as I was typing this out, that what it all took was ACTION. I had to actually DO things to chip away at that snotty little "Why bother?" voice. There was no THINKING my way out of this - it took experiments, learning, talking, and sharing, to get me creating art journal pages now.

Methinks that's a life lesson right there. :D

Anyways, I'm sharing a Valentine-y page I'm working on - all pinks and reds and Love - as part of Connie's Art Journal Blog Party. It's not finished - it's at a place where I'm not sure where to go next. But it's also at a stage that I feel comfortable sharing with all of you. Pretty cool, for someone who couldn't even paint a solid-colored background 3 years ago without freaking out. :D



Thank you so much, to those that read and subscribed to this blog. Because I'm changing, the format of this blog will be changing as well. Honestly, I can't see me doing experiments, on the scale I was before. Maybe little ones, like the PanPastel experiment, but no more grand-scale ones. I just want to give anyone that subscribed a heads up about this, in case you start seeing more posts from me, but not the experiments posts you originally signed up for.

Image Transfers...

...ephemeral, lovely, mysterious…

And dang hard to master.

There seems to be at least 20 different transfer techniques that I've run across and at least 30 different products to try, ranging from the ultra-cheap (clear packing tape) to the ultra-expensive (Lazertran). It all varies, depending on where the image came from (inkjet printer? laser printer? magazine?), where it’s going (paper? fabric? metal? clay?), and what you want to use it for (collage? T-shirt? art quilt?).

Sheesh, huh?

My own journey into the world of image transfers started about 6 years ago, when I was wandering the aisles of Michael’s, looking for inspiration (Do you ever do that? Roam the aisles of a craft store, not to buy anything, but just seeing what the possibilities are?). In the glue aisle, I came across Omni-Gel by Houston Art, made specifically for image transfers (makes a great collage glue, too). I read the bottle, and thought “Image transfers? What the heck is an image transfer?”

Oh-ho-ho, was I in for a surprise. I came home, Googled it, and found the Art-E-Zine web page all about them. Suddenly, this whole new world opened up to me, and my wheels began turning. I immediately went back to Michael’s, got the Omni-Gel, printed off some images on my HP Inkjet PSC 750, and set to work.

First, I tried printing off my images on just regular copy paper, and then followed the Omni-Gel process of making a gel “skin” of that image. But, when I wetted down the paper to remove it, the ink ran off of the transfer something fierce. I ended up with a grey-green ghost image, where it had originally been black.

So, next, I tried printing off my images on some HP Matte Photo paper* I had, and wow! It worked! The transfers came out beautifully. The ink ran a bit, but not nearly as bad as it had before. I still have one of my practice ones, shown below, from 5 years ago, and it's still as if I made it yesterday (but it's been in a drawer...hence, the wrinkles…I’ve since learned that HP ink fades considerably in UV light).

However, as beautifully as it finally worked, it bothered me how much it all cost. The Omni-Gel was $10 for an 8 oz. bottle (which I used most of in my practice tests), and the HP Matte Photo paper was $15/50 sheets at the time. I’ve since learned that’s not too bad at all, as far as costs go, but at the time, it bugged me. It also bothered me that it was so hard to get inkjet images to transfer, where you needed special paper, special products, and lots of practice, while there were so many ways to get laser, toner and magazine images to transfer easily. On top of this, just looking at all the image transfer techniques on that Art-E-Zine page just made my head swim with possibilities. I wanted to try them ALL.

So, I set out on a quest, to find my own Holy Grail of Inkjet Image Transfers: the One True Process that would be reasonably priced, relatively easy, and could be used with my inkjet printer.

I’ve learned so much on this quest, the main one being that it doesn’t really exist, the One True Way to the Perfect Inkjet Image Transfer, lol. There are just WAY too many considerations for there to be only one True Way. There’s only the process that works best for what you have, what you need, and what you can afford. But, now I’m hooked, and I wanna know how each process works, when stacked against other processes/products.

And so, because I’m going to test this stuff anyway (especially Inkjet Transfers), I wanted to share the results with you. These experiments aren’t meant to be how-to’s, because there are gazillions of tutorials out there that can explain it far better than I can. Whenever I can, though, I’ll give links to tutorials that I used to run my experiments. My main idea is just to show you the results. It’s helped me so much to be able to compare different products and methods, side-by-side, and I’m hoping that it will help you, too.

But, before I jump into my 1st big Inkjet Transfer experiment, I wanted to point out a few places that have helped me tremendously in learning about inkjet transfers.

Inkjet Transfer Yahoo Group - A group started by fabric artist Lesley Riley, with detailed instructions in their Files section for all kinds of different ways to transfer inkjet images to your fabric, metal, paper, etc. This is the group that taught me about why my HP inks ran so horribly in my first inkjet transfer (because they’re dye inks, and therefore, water-based), as well as why my HP Matte Photo paper worked better than regular copy paper (it’s the clay-coating on the paper). There's continual discussion and advice about printers to use, types of papers or transparencies to print your image on, as well as information about laser and toner copier transfers. Very active, helpful group with no posting requirements.

Art-E-Zine's List of Image Transfer Techniques - This is the list that got me started on this path 6 years ago, when I made my 1st successful image transfer using Omni Gel. Includes techniques for several different mediums, like Polaroid film transfers (expensive medium, but gorgeous results), polymer clay and laser/toner transfers.

Heart-A-Day's Squidoo Lens on Image Transfers - Another excellent resource. She has a great list of tutorials, books and videos that show how to make transfers, step-by-step.

In the next post, I’m going to show you the results of my 1st big Inkjet Transfer experiment, where I compare 2 different papers with 3 different mediums, from images printed on an HP PSC 1350.

*As an aside, HP has changed the packaging on the original Matte Photo paper I used, so now it’s called HP Everyday Matte Photo Paper. I can’t tell you, though, whether it’s the same formula they originally used. It feels the same to me, but because I no longer have my HP PSC 750, I can’t do a true comparison between my 1st transfer with the old paper, and this newly-packaged paper.