IMAGE TRANSFER PLAYTIME

Do you remember when High School Debbie and I went to something called Corks & Creations one evening, and had all that fun playing with shaving cream and marbled papers? Well, I got to attend another of those workshops last week, only this time I met up with my friend Fiber Woman.

The topic this time was image transfers -- a technique I have played around with in my art journals, but without much success. Now I know why.

To do an image transfer, you simply take one of your photos and make a copy of it on a toner-based printer, such as a xerox or laser printer (Problem #1 - I have an ink jet). When it's good and dry, you just brush some Golden gel medium over the surface of the image, brush some more over the surface you want to transfer it to, lay the image face down on that surface, use a brayer or credit card edge to smooth out all the bubbles and wrinkles, and then wait. Wait a good long time. Like overnight. Or maybe even a week, if it's a large piece. (Problem #2 - I was peeling mine up after about 30 minutes)

Our instructor for this workshop was local artist Martha Gibson, who happens to be my neighbor as well. Here you see a couple of her masterpieces, involving several layers of images and ephemera. Her work is always winning prizes in local art shows.

If, unlike me, you wait the proper length of time, all the ink from your photocopy will magically transfer itself to the other surface. Then all you have to do is wet the paper it was originally on, rub it all off, et voila! Martha had gelled some images for each of us ahead of time, so we could have the fun of revealing one right away, then we got to begin a couple more to take home with us and work on later.

The really fun part came next, when we all got to dig through tons of ribbons, scraps, jewels and trinkets, looking for fun embellishments for our images.

Too bad this photo turned out blurry, for this was one of my favorites from the evening. The girl who did it had cut out some images from that pile of National Geographic magazines, and layered them over her original butterfly image. I especially like the head from a Bat Girl toy which she glued on.

Now I ask you, what could possibly be more fun than an evening spent with a bunch of crazy-creative women? And a few bottles of wine. Hence the name "Corks" and Creations.