Tuesday 2 November 2010

The Heart of Art - Week 2

Well it's been so hard trying to fit in the time to make a start on my Week 2 project - but here goes.
We started off with a children's board book - any sort - this was 30p from a charity shop.
We painted the pages with Gesso in preparation for doing an image transfer

We were shown two methods of doing an image transfer - by using an image printed on an acrylic sheet - which I didn't have - so I used the other technique

Whereby you print your image onto paper, cut it out, paint glue onto the page nice and thickly, then add the image, and leave to dry - and this is what it looks like at the leaving to dry stage.

I left mine overnight - don't know how I had the patience - but I did, and it was worth it!


Once dry, using your fingers, you rub, and rub, and rub to remove all the paper off the print and are left with the image in the now dried glue!

It's quite eerie how it emerges - and it really is hard to imagine beforehand that it will emerge.
But it does and leaves a lovely soft, almost ghostly effect - which is quite appropriate for this exercise as it represents our childhood years - up to around 3yrs old.  

I didn't have any photos of my childhood  years so 'borrowed' some images.  You can see some of the bits of rubbed paper still around.  
The next part of the process is to type up words or phrases to represent your wishes for the childhood images.  

My printer decided to pack up, grrr, so I had to improvise.

I am rather disappointed about that, so if/when I get it fixed I think I will paint over my writing and print out the phrases as you get a much better result.

One of the things that Tam has taught us is that there is no such thing as a 'mistake' - you just paint over it as many times as you like to change it.