I’ve been loving this collage stuff. I’ve had tons of fun with the backgrounds but the most exciting new technique I’ve learned is the image transfer process using clear contact paper. It works so well and creates an image that is somewhat transparent. You are able to see some of the background texture through the image. It’s really cool. So here’s how it’s done.
You start with a photograph (or any image) that you have printed on a laser printer. I just scanned in this photo, resized it to the right size and printed it out.
Here’s the contact paper cut to the right size to fit over my image.
You peel off the paper backing and stick the contact paper to your image. Then you burnish it really well with a bone folder or the back of a spoon. Whatever works. You want it to adhere really well because basically the ink from the image sticks to the contact paper.
Then you let the image soak in some water for a while until the paper is soft.
You take your image out of the water and gently rub off the paper. As you can see, the paper comes off and leaves the image behind. Awesome! Sometimes you have to do it twice to get all the paper fibers off. Just don’t rub too hard or the image comes off as well.
Here is the image with all the paper off and ready to be used.
My background has been painted with a buff colored acryic and then dabbed with crumpled up plastic wrap to give it some texture. Then I’ve covered the area where I want to put the image with gel medium. I use those cheap foam brushes. I use Regular Gel Medium Matte. This is the greatest stuff ever. It will hold down anything, dries clear, remains pliable when dry and is archival.
When you put your image down onto the gel medium, you also have to paint some on top of the image as well. I’ve also glued the angel charm down using gel medium. It will hold anything. This picture is after everything has dried.
You can layer several images done this way with great affect. I’m just in love with this process.