Rosaland is the perfect artist’s date. She comes over with Rubbermaid containers of dyes and inks, paints and brushes, digital grounds and rubber stamps. She’s a one-person creative force. We get together to have an artist date–the activity Julia Cameron suggested in The Artists Way. It’s a time to recharge creative batteries. Some people go to a museum, or an art store, Rosaland and I get together to try out ideas.
The best part of these get togethers is that we are engaged in creative play. Tonight it was transfer papers, everything from Sheer Heaven to the new TAP (transfer artist paper) to Lutradur. We used them all with and without digital grounds–a paint that prepares a surface (metal, plastic) for printing or transfer application.
When we start we don’t have an end point in mind. It’s about having fun and trying out ideas, with no hope of creating a functional product. It’s creative play, and because it has no time limit, no requirement to publish or teach, we are open to new ideas, failures, and laughing. There is always a lot of laughing.
Here are some discoveries:
Photo transfer to fabric
I printed a photo of a willow tree on Painted Treasures, a transfer-like sheet of cloth that has a removable paper backing. After it goes through the printer and dries, remove the backing and you have a perfect photo on a piece of cloth. For Rosaland, it can go on a quilt. For me, it’s a journal page in the rough.
Lutrador painted with fabric paints
Rosaland used Lutradur as a painting surface. I love the color as well as the translucency of this piece.
Transparency with photo--half painted with digital grounds
I painted half a transparency sheet with white matte grounds and left the other half bare. The painted half held the photo of the clouds, the unpainted half held my fingerprints as they wiped off the ink. Creativity is messy business.
Woodblock with photo transfer
My favorite result of the evening was using the iron-on TAP on a block of wood. The iron may not have been hot enough, but the result was wonderful to me. It looks like a Japanese woodblock print, but with much room for interpretation. Is it a tree in the wind? A snow scene with a tree and a fence? It’s actually the same willow as the fabric transfer, but in experimental form.
Used papertowel makes a great background sheet.
Finally, Rosaland and I always save our paper towel clean-up sheets. They make great background for another project.
QuinnCreative 
I’m exploring old blog posts this morning. I did a color pencil drawing on batik fabric, then I did a photo transfer of the drawing onto printed treasures. After that I went to my sewing machine and punched up the drawing with decorative threads and free motion embroidery. The results were stunning! I always get tons of great ideas from you. Thanks Quinn!
Free-motion is a lot of fun. It requires some practice, but the result, as you said, is punched-up art! Your ideas are really cooking this week!
You guys sound like a blast. Heck, just reading your blog entry was a blast!
You would be the perfect person to join us–you are only a day or so away!
Hi Quinn, these are beautiful. That bright blue sky transfer is AMAZING! Best wishes from germany, tj
The photo with the woodblock photo transfer is to me so powerful and dreamlike at the same time and I see a panther or two panthers in movement, or maybe I see two cheetahs in a beautiful landscape from our dreamtimes.
I love it!
Dream time is the time we are awake to possibility. I’m so glad you like this woodblock.
this is what I miss, working in my little vacuum in Cheyenne, not able to to farther afield. INCHES of snow on the ground today… experimenting with new silk fabrics and beginning a new quilt.
We don’t get out in the summer, Phil. It’s too hot. We get all our hiking, visiting, meetings, and DOing done in winter months. Once it gets really hot, and you guys are having fun, we are estivating–the summer form of hibernating.
To me, that IS a perfect transfer!
That is exactly what Rosaland and I thought, too!
What fun play dates you have… I mean Artist Dates! It’s always more fun to have someone to laugh with when doing experiments like that! Thanks for sharing your results. I’m feeling some play time approching!
It’s so much fun not to have a completion goal. I’m sure if I had to make a perfect transfer onto the wood, I would have wept. Because we were experimenting, we laughed and loved the abstract result.
These were amazing experiments, love them and that wood transfer is fantastic!
Working without a specific goal opens so many doors!