Photo Transfers… My Way

July 13th, 2010

A new Mini Tutorial!!

I have finally been getting in some productive studio time. I love to incorporate my flower photos into my work, and transferring them onto fabric from transparencies is one way to do that. You can see lots of my flower photos here in my Main Blog. This is the technique I have found that works best for me…. there are many methods that I have tried, but this is the only way that works for me. It might not be the best for everyone, but here is my process.

Transparencies

I begin by printing the photos I want to use onto Transparencies made for inkjet printers. The brand I am using is Hammermill… What I found at Staples. I print with an Epson inkjet printer that uses DuraBright inks. These inks are archival, and I can print directly onto fabric if I want to. This transfer method gives a more antiqued or aged look to the transferred photos. Above are a selection of photos printed according to the transparency directions. I set my printer for “Best Photo” printing and plain paper. With my tests, this has worked the best for me. The printed transparencies are placed over dyed fabrics that I am thinking of transferring the images to. I can see what will and won’t look good before I start anything.

Dyed Fabric Base

Above are a couple of pieces of fabric I dyed that didn’t really turn out just like I wanted, but will make for good backgrounds for the transfers. I lightly dampen the fabric, then apply a coating of very thinned Heavy Bodied Gel Gloss Medium. I am using Golden Brand for this batch of transfers, but I have used Liquitex  Soft Gel Medium with similar results. The medium helps to seal the base fabric so it is not so porous to take the transfers better.

Wax Pastel on Fabric

To add more interest to the pieces, I have added Water Soluble Wax Pastel to fabric while the medium is still wet. I have just scribbled various colors on.

Wax Pastel Brushed Into Fabric

The above photo shows the fabric after I blended the  pastel into the medium.

Dyed Fabric with Chalk Pastel

Here is another piece of fabric… another dyed piece that didn’t have much color, so I added more with chalk pastels this time to start. I decided to play with some wild colors here…. they look really bright on the wet fabric, but will soften after blending and as the fabric dries.

Chalk Rubbed In Wax Added

Here is what the chalk looked like after being blended in. I then added some wax pastel for even more color in scribbles that I then blended in also.

Fabric with Transparency Images

Here is one of the fabric pieces after it dried and was ironed between parchment paper. The photo above shows one transfer already done, and images on transparencies cut out and placed where I want to put them.  You can see how the colors of the fabric will change the image colors.

Soaking Transparency

When I am ready to do the transfer, I soak the image on the transparency in lukewarm water in a shallow container.

Image Soaked in Water

I let the image soak for about 10 seconds, then take it out and hold it over an old towel to catch the runoff. You can see in the photo above, the ink is beginning to “bubble up”. When all the ink has begun to bubble, the transfer is ready to be applied. Darker ink colors seem to take longer than others to be ready for placement.

Rubbing Transfer

I lay the image ink side down on the fabric, then burnish the back of the transparency with a spoon until totally covered.

Removing Transparency

Once the whole back has been rubbed, begin to peel the plastic off slowly. If the ink sticks to the transparency, it may need more moisture and rubbing.

Finished Transfer

Here is the transfer after the plastic backing has been removed, the ink and coating on the transparency sticks to the prepared fabric. On this transfer, some small bits of the image stuck to the plastic, this gives the aged look to the transfers.

Another Transfer

The above transfer is one that didn’t soak long enough… the deeper colors didn’t stay on the fabric very well, so this one really looks distressed.

Group of Transfers

This photo shows the whole piece of fabric that I did with a number of transfers ready to dry. These will probably be used on various covers for mini composition and brag books, or standard sized composition books. I will combine the transfers with different dyed or painted fabrics to coordinate with the images. These will be available for purchase in my Andrus Gardens Gift Items Studio on Artfire when I finish them.

Mammocumulous Cloud Transfer

This is the largest transfer I have tried so far… it is the full length of the transparency, nearly 11 inches. I used the fabric with large yellow areas to pull the color down from the image. I removed some of the ink from the image’s lower edge to help it to blend into the fabric. I then added more pastel for more color below the transfer. This will become a small art quilt based on one of my photos of the stormy skies just over a week ago.

Once the transfers dry, I cover them with parchment paper and iron things well. This flattens any rough edges that sometimes occur from the coating on the transparencies. The image can melt and stick to your iron, so be sure to use the parchment.

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Classroom Under Construction….

June 23rd, 2010

Weedy Garden

The construction process of this site has been a lot like the progress in my gardens….. I have dealt with some technical issues, in addition to issues with my own body. With Fibromyalgia, I get really frustrated when I get knocked down by it, and when my outdoor gardens start looking like the above photo, I don’t always listen to my body. It tells me to take a break, and I end up paying dearly with exhaustion and pain when I keep working, which adds to my frustration.

Front Garden a Month Later

My gardens are the source of many of the flower photos and inspirations for my quilts and fabric painting.  I also use many flowers and leaves from them to create the designs in my fabrics with sunprinting and nature prints. They, like the website, are a lot of work, but give me a lot back in the end. I really hope that this site will contain a wealth of information that will help many others with new ideas and more.

I will continue to move posts from my previous blog as well as posting new ones. If you find a post or two missing photos or with other problems, check back… I will be working on things slowly….

UPDATE: June 26… Thank You to my Tech Geek son who fixed most of my photo problems!!

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Flowers Anyone?? A WIP….

February 1st, 2010

Here is a quick post of the progress, or lack of it on a piece I have been working on since my QSDS class in June. It has spent more time being stared at than anything else, and I have taken more photos of this while working on it than any other piece I have ever done. My camera and laptop ended up being a great design tools during the process of this piece. In case you haven’t noticed, I love flowers, and have lots of photos I have taken that I want to work into my quilts after I print them onto fabric.

Things Changed

The piece in question is in the upper left of this photo…. an attempt at getting my work out of the box, or frame, etc…. It was pointed out to me that I tend to most always frame or box in parts of my quilts. This has been a huge challenge, to use mainly my flowers without boxing them in!

I took this home as it was, and put it on my design wall, but something really seemed off…. I loved the colors and the flowers, but it just seemed like a “jumble of stuff”…

Testlayout2B&W

I then took a photo of the piece and changed it to black and white in the computer…. It still looked like a jumble to me…. The colors that looked strong to me, fade out when just looking at the values, not colors. The white and pale pink flowers seemed to jump out. The flowers are printed onto cotton fabric that I have backed with Wonder Under. The piece is being arranged on a large piece of backing paper saved from a large piece of Wonder Under that was used earlier for anther project. I keep all of it… you never know when it will come in handy.

Testlayout4

Another idea was to add some bits of color with narrow strips of bright pink fabric, and I also draped some deep colored batik to see what would happen….. I changed this to B&W, and still had problems with values… the bright pink didn’t show at all, and the batik seemed to take over- too dark…. back to the design wall….

I had been tacking flower pieces onto the paper base with the iron, but ended up moving things so much, that I started pinning everything in place- easier to move around on my foam design wall.

Testlayout6

Besides flowers, I have been drawn to old architecture and have taken photos of quite a few old houses, sheds and barns. I printed a couple on fabric, and added them to the corners. I still had the bright pink pieces in the piece….

Testlayout7-8

In the left photo above, I changed one of the lower pink strips of fabric to white- Too much- yuck!… Right above- lots of moves later… The pink Peony flowers seemed too heavy for the center, so I moved them to the bottom. A bunch of others removed and moved…

Testlayout10-11

Filling in some of the holes with more flowers.. I began to remove the colored strips and experimented with more changes… The white Iris and Peony switched… Peony is bulkier… I also began cutting out the backgrounds from the flower prints. This makes things look more natural.

Testlayout12-14

Left above- lots removed, and the white schoolhouse cut into two pieces and moved- it seemed to make things top heavy…… Right above- I thought about having Morning Glory flowers, so I took some new photos one morning while they were still in bloom, and printed them to add. Getting closer to having the space filled…

Testlayout15-17

Now what to do with the upper left corner….. Sky?? Too stark… Took my Water Road house photo into Photoshop and changed the sky to blue and some added green tree leaves to the photo, printed it onto fabric…might work… Those pink Daisies stick out… the Hydrangeas upper left aren’t working….

Testlayout24-25

Hmmmm… Daisies at the base of the old shed…. few more holes filled…. Peony flowers don’t grow sideways… cut the flowers apart and repositioned them… added a couple more small ones… Hydrangeas still stick out….

Testlayout26

Hydrangeas kicked out…. Maybe ready for fusing?.?.?  If you look close, you can see lots of yellow headed pins. I now let it sit over night and looked at it the next morning, still looks OK…. later in the day… Time to fuse….

Look MA No Pins

All fused to the backing paper!! No more pins! I had to do a bit of cutting out of fabric pieces under light colored flowers. Now I have to figure out what I am going to do as far as quilting and stitching on it…. Probably clear thread to hide the stitching and not take away from the flowers.

Testlayout30

Still deciding whether I will border this a little or not… A narrow black border photoshopped in. I am running out of time for finishing this… I have entered it into my local quilt guild’s quilt show coming up the last weekend of this month…. just less than two weeks and counting…. hopefully the worst is over…. One problem…. fairly minor, I thought this would end up bigger than it is, but adding more than a tiny border just didn’t seem to look right. I guess I’ll just let the gals in charge of the show know what the final size will be…. I’m not the only one who enters unfinished quilts :) Having the deadline, gives me a reason to keep working on this and not cover it up and forget about it.

Flower Garden Finished

Well, here it is…. The finished quilt.  Bordered with a narrow black border and quilted with clear thread. The photo here may not show the quilting really well, but there is a lot of it!

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First Official Post from the Classroom!

January 8th, 2010

After spending many hours working to set things up, I finally have much of my new Classroom site up and running

UPDATE… I thought I had things up and running…. After a site crash, I lost all photos from my posts, and just got things running again here in JUNE…. I will now be working to reload the missing  photos that got lost.

I am still learning more every day about all of this.

Pink Potentilla

Hey, I now even have a photo in a post!!  Actually this is a new photo in the post…. No longer snow, but a flower.

THIS POST ALONG WITH THIS SITE IS AGAIN A WORK IN PROGRESS

Wisteria in Progress

Here is another photo…. It is of one of my new “Stones and Walls” pieces in progress. Once I get things settled a bit more here, and get busy writing lessons, this (or a similar piece) will be a part of one of my planned Online Classes that can be taken right from the Online Classroom area of this site.

Fabric painting and sunprinting have fascinated me for years. There is so much to learn by playing with fabrics, paints, flowers, leaves, and much more. There will be classes for fabric painting basics as well as for more advanced classes involving sunprinting, nature printing  and other fun techniques.

If you are familiar with my work, and are interested in learning new techniques, let me know in the comments what your would like to see me teach.

(Please pardon the “dust” and possible scrambled look of things while I am in the building process)

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Indoor Sunprinting Mini Tutorial

January 29th, 2007

Here it is, a mini tutorial showing how I sunprinted fabrics indoors last week.   I usually paint and print outdoors, but here in NE PA,  the number of good days are limited, and if I run out, or need a different fabric, I am stuck having to wait till warm weather.
Even though it is called sunprinting, the sun is not what causes the print to form. There are heliographic paints that react to the sun, but I print using acrylic textile paints.  Any good quality paint for fabric will work. I have had great results with Setacolor®, Versatex®, and now use mostly Jacquard® brand paints. The prints are a result of the drying process, and placing the fabric in the sun is the cheapest method of drying it quickly.  In my new setup, I have a germination chamber that was used in our greenhouses for starting seeds indoors.  It has shelves with flourescent lights, that light and warm whatever is placed on the shelf.

Crispy Ferns

Crispy Ferns

Pressed Ferns

My work centers around flowers and gardens, so I print mostly flowers and leaves.  for the most detailed prints, items need to be very flat.  The ferns on the left got too dry without being pressed enough, you can see how curled they are.  The ferns on the right are perfect for printing.  I try to harvest enough leaves in the summer and fall, so I have them available to use later.  For butterflies and hummingbirds, I cut shapes out of foamie sheets.

Pressed Stack

Here is a stack of leaves, etc. pressed between newspapers ready for printing. During the growing season, I press leaves for at least a few hours to overnight.  They don’t need to be dry, just flat (actually dry items are harder to work with- sometimes very brittle).

Paint Board

Water Bucket

Fabric Ball

Smoothed Fabric

Paint and Brushes

Here are some pictures in sequence, of my paint board, fabric to be used, and paints ready to use.  My paint boards are 1/4″ plywood covered with heavy vinyl, and as you can see, I don’t always clean up extra paint between sessions (it does clean up great with a little sudsy water and a plastic “scrubby”, when needed).  The remaining paint is dry, and usually doesn’t transfer to the new piece of fabric. My boards are sized to handle fat quarters, or slightly larger pieces of fabric. I start with wet fabric, dunking it into a bucket of water, wring it out somewhat, and then smooth it out onto the board.  This way, my printing items can have good contact with the fabric (also, if working in an outdor breeze, the fabric “sticks” to the board until it is dry).  The pic. on the right is a set-up with my paints ready to use.  I mix my own base colors, and work with my paints watered down to about the consistancy of heavy cream- the color will be lighter, the more water you add, and I like soft, calming colors. I have been using plastic food containers with “leakproof” lids,  with great results- I can keep mixed paint in these containers for months, and if the lids are on, they usually don’t leak when tipped over. I also have a mist bottle for water, inexpensive brushes, baby wipes for hand cleaning (if there is no sink nearby), a rinse container, and a bottle of “Super Sparkle” paint by Jacquard®- to add shimmer if I want.

Paint on Fabric

Now the fun begins…..I apply the paint to the fabric.  I like to see what happens when I overlap colors, so I work quickly, and sometimes it looks like I am slopping it on. If I want some sparkle, I add a metallic, pearl, or the super sparkle to the paint, or overpaint areas with it, depending upon the effect I am looking for.

Spritzing Fabric


To keep the paint wet longer, and to help colors run more, I spritz with water. You don’t want to get things too sloppy, or the color will weaken more than you want.

Placing Fern

While the paint is still wet, the objects are placed right onto the wet paint. Ferns are great, and if they are not brittle, they can be bent into gentle curves. This needs to be done quickly, so the items are arranged before the drying begins.

Patting Fern

The fern is now patted down, so it lays as tightly to the fabric as possible. Any areas that are not tight to the fabric will cause a ghostlike image.

Sea Salt

Using salt is optional.  For this fabric, I wanted the patterning the salt causes.  This is coarse sea salt from the grocery store.

Salt on Fabric


When adding salt to sunprints, keep it between the items to be printed, not on them unless you want to soften areas of the prints.

Under Lights

When everyting has been added to the fabric, it is placed under the lights.  The board with the fabric needs to be quite close to the lights to take full advantage of the warming of the bulbs to speed drying.  the day I did this, the temp of my room was quite cool, so drying was slower that I wanted, so I placed the board on the floor near the heat outlet of the furnace there to speed things up- I didn’t have patience.

Salt Working

The furnace is one where the heat blows out of the bottom, and I placed the board so it got a gentle warm breeze from it.  It worked great!  This picture shows the salt pulling the paint into neat patterns. Too direct a blast of air would blow things off the fabric.

Removing Fern

Here is the dry fabric, showing the result after the fern was removed.  If they are removed before “crispy” dry, they can be reused (I put them back in the newspapers).  If too dry, the ferns tend to stick, and break apart.  This is where playing comes in.  If the fabric is too damp, the prints may not have formed well.

Finished Pieces

After all the leaves, etc. are removed, and the salt brushed off, the fabric needs to be heat set.  These are the two pieces I did.  I needed these  to continue with a work in progress that I am calling my “puzzle” right now.  I started construction with the border, and am working from one corner to the other.  This is one of those pieces where I found I needed something I didn’t have, so I needed to print it.  These fabric will be used in the upper left section.

Puzzle in Progress

This is my WIP.  The outer border and inner border around the large sunprint, are pieces of my painted fabrics, and various ivories stitched with black thread to resemble stained glass.  The piece is “growing” from the lower right to upper left.  It covers my whole 3′x4′ cutting table. There are many sunprints being used.  I am planning to see what different ideas I can come up with to use my sunprints in different ways.

To see what I have already done with sunprints, check out my larger Sunprint Quilts, or Sunprint Mini Quilts, Galleries on my website.  Website- www.AndrusGardensQuilts.com

More finished quilts and items for sale using sunprinted fabric are available from my two shops on Artfire:
Fabric and Quilted Gift Item Studio- Andrus Gardens on Artfire
Art Quilts Studio- Andrus Gardens Quilts on Artfire

***This tutorial ©2007-2010 Sue Andrus, may not be reproduced in part or full for more than your own personal use, without permission.***

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