Acrylic Transfer!

Finally, I have completed the first of what I hope will be a series of acrylic transfers. This process, while fun, turned out to be a bit more time consuming that I originally thought. Nonetheless, I really love the results! Take a look!!

Some detail shots:

  

For those unfamiliar with the whole procedure, it's actually fairly simple. I'll outline it below along with what I learned along the way in my little experiment.


1. Print out your image on some good quality inket paper. 
What I learned: Photo Paper (Like the Epson super premium glossy photo paper) does NOT work for this process at all...it's too water proof. Also, you might consider printing your image out slightly bigger than you want your final piece to be. There will be a little shrinkage. A quarter of an inch should do the trick.


2. Let your prints dry overnight.


3. Apply four coats of Glossy Gel Acrylic Medium to the front of your print. Make sure to do change directions on each coat to ensure coverage and strength. Let this dry AT LEAST overnight. 


4. Once dry, and I mean DRY, submerge your coated prints in a bath of warm water. I used a photo tray to do this so as not to make a HUGE mess. Let it soak for a few minutes. Remove the back of the print by scraping off the paper. Be gentle, but firm. The gel medium is actually fairly strong stuff. But it is prone to tearing so be careful!


5. When you have removed the paper backing, lay your transfer out onto a piece of wax paper and weight down overnight to flatten. You will squeeze water out during this first night, so replace the wax paper the next morning. 
What I learned: Don't let this stuff sit out to terribly long, it will be come STUCK to the wax paper eventually and it becomes SUPER difficult to remove. Also the longer it sits out, the more brittle the  transfer will become. 


6. Finally, figure out what you want to tack your masterpiece onto. Apply a coat of gel medium to the surface you want your transfer to stick to, then simply slap the transfer on, remove bubbles (if you want!)   and let dry. You can pull and stretch the transfer to a certain extent, but again, it's fairly brittle so be careful. 
What I learned: Don't stress out about the bubbles and wrinkles...they actually look pretty bad ass!

7. Apply a couple of coats of Gel Medium to the top of your transfer once you have it on your new surface. This will seal it up and make it stand up better against the elements. I also layed on a couple layers of UV Gloss Varnish just to get a nice shine on my final piece.


So, now that you know how to do it (and if my instructions aren't clear, you might just google Acrylic Transfer Process and there are videos out there) I would love to see what you all come up with! Leave me comments with links to your work!