Someone told me that failures are misunderstood. Rather, a process can have many steps along the way to success. So, for Edison, the 999 pre lightbulb efforts were not failures; they were steps. Someone else told me, that when you stop trying, you fail. You can see from all the encouragement around me that I am one of the people who struggle making many small steps along the way and hating it.
A card project with Queen Anne's Lace has been on my mind for 2 years. It seems so simple. Put colour on the flower, press it onto a card, and you are done. This has been a spook show from beginning to end. I am unhappy with the results that have taken FOREVER to produce. I am VERY unhappy with the process. So I will share it all in the hopes of saving a fellow artist some steps on the way to their success..
Queen Anne's Lace Image Transfer
Steps:
Select a number of flowers.
Check for smaller size so that they will fit on the card. Also look for lots of negative space around the florets to improve the transfer results.
Prepare a card base
5 x 7 will give you a bit more room with which to work. To achieve a clean edge I masked the cards with washi tape. The plan was to remove the masking tape and replace with the desired colour following the image transfer.
Wrong.
The tape was not fully repositionable and torn some of the card margins. Sad for me.
Prepare paints for image transfer
Consider which paint will best serve, along with the most effective means of getting the paint on the flower. Standard choices are acrylic ( which I tend not to like) guoache ( which I like a lot but proved too sticky for a clean transfer ) and water colour ( which i used in the end --A low quality watercolour was more effective for this task becuase the paint was thinner .)
Originally I planned to dip the flower head in a pool of colour.
Wrong
The colour continually was too viscous and didn't reveal the delicate lace of the florets. Adding water did not give the desired result.
Final approach is to paint straight from the tube watercolour on the front of the flower. Colour will seep to the back but that is alright.
Remove some of the paint by pressing it onto a sheet. The place image where you like on the card. Wear gloves.
My first efforts used yellow red and blue because
I liked the notion of a "fireworks" effect.
But i didn't actually like the final result.
A second version using yellow coral and pale green
looked better to me.
To Recap the Issues:
The brown background colour is not working well in this project.
Masking off with washi tape ruined the card edges
Getting a "clean" transfer was very challenging. It was hard to get the perfect paint viscosity. The flower also needed to be freshly cut or it ended to leave small bits of plant matter behind in the paint
The colour ways were disappointing
It is very hard to apply the washi tape cleanly on the edges where it joins. I like perfect. I rarely get what I like.
Fixes :
I bought white cards. I have 50 brown cards that I can't seem to use up but mayhap the morrow will bring enlightenmen
I created a " stencil" frame to place over the card
I tried a second time with a more pleasing colour way
For the washi tape edges, I marked on the tape where they joined, cut , then erased the mark. The edges are abutted and without a ridge. I find that really hard to do .
I didn't enjoy this project and it took far too much time. I ended up with perhaps 5 usable cards. And while I have numerous washi tapes, I couldn't find a suitable colour in my collection to run the edges. I had to go out and BUY more.
Note : sometimes its better to pick your edge colour first, instead of assuming that you will find a suitable match after the fact. Good thing I have a job that pays the bills !! And remember its all just steps on the way...