Memories - photo transfer

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Jen's mother - various experiments with different techniques

 The photograph transferring went very well indeed, although we found that the originals needed to have a high contrast of light and darks for a good result using "Quick off" - a type of thinners, and acrylic matt medium. The pictures below on a silk-cotton mix were Quick-off transfers from good quality "toner" photocopies. There is a softness and ethereal quality that is diffiuclt to simulate in Photoshop.

Work by Geraldine and Gail

The piece below was printed on ink-jet treated fabric and there is an exact replication of detail. This is often what is required although it may be difficult to incorporate it into a complex fabric artwork, because the precise detail would contrast very strongly with any additional details. As ink-jet fabric is obtainable in different types of fabric such as the organza one, if you wanted a "misty" result on silk or organza, it could be done using quick-off onto cotton, then scanned and printed onto ink-jet treated organza.

Jean's boys when they were scouts

Geraldine's transfer on organza, photographed  against the backdrop of garden

Acyrlic Matt medium transfers from ink jet copies on acetate often left a coloured ink print (even though the original would have been black and white) because ink jet black ink is a mixture of coloured inks.

Sue's trees did not transfer very clearly at all, but left a rather lovely bark-like background for machine embroidery.

Gail, Lin & Sue's transfers

The next step was to work with printing styles and we began doing this with rubber stamp letters and stamped tiny letters to be embroidered. And then we ran out of time...

I would love to see what the embroiderer's make of their photos, how they add words and perhaps stitchery onto the fabric photos to integrate them into artworks.

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