Water-Creative Daily, Creative Monthly

For the site that I receive daily-Creative Daily, or Creative Monthly, the topic was water.

So, I have been on this idea to use very little colors in my work. The other day, I picked my favorite aqua against my dislikes of color in paintings-tan and olive green.

Today, I decided to do a painting with yellow. I really really like yellow and can actually wear it as a color also. I painted my canvas paper with grey gesso, creating a more serene look than white gesso. Then, I took plain yellow acrylic, white acrylic and the grey gesso, and kept mixing different variations of yellow. I used a bit of yellow and alot of white and also, alot of grey and a little yellow, and then kept adding white and yellow to all of the different puddles of paint. I did a sunset on the horizon line with the ocean and beach in the foreground. I know the perspective is off, but I wanted to paint water in yellow rather than blues, greens and purples.

Water, Ocean, Painting with different colors

I am going to be posting a small painting/collage of water, a creative daily post. I am not going to use the colors that you would normally be seeing for water though. I hope it will look like water though, oh so what if it doesn't right? It will be my imaginary water.

Finished Tutorial and Views of all transfers

Going from Left to Right
Gel Medium on water color paper. The first went bad, the second I blow dryed and waited longer

The third one is the image with gel medium put on the surface of the image and the brown paper. They were bone folded, breyered with the wall paper seamer, blow dried a few times for a few minutes waiting for about 30 minutes, then wetting with water and rubbed off. A light coating of gel medium was rubbed into the surface for the image to come out clearer and the tag rumpled up a bit.

The fourth one is the packing tape. This was the second one. The cheap tape or cheap printer paper may have been the problem here. Remember I mentioned that the magazine images come out a bit better. When you are making one out of a magazine, you can actually let the image sit in water overnight before you rub the paper off of the tape.

The fifth image you are seeing is just the ink jet copy that was wet and layed on top of water color paper. It held up well. I blew it dry and am keeping it for another project.

Use a Bone Folder to Rub the Transfer

I bought a roll of packing tape at the Dollar Store. I cut a piece and layed it over the surface of the copied picture. I rubbed it with the bone folder, all over the picture till I rubbed well and every spot possible. The first attempt I made was placing the piece in a bowl of water. I have done that type of transfer before so I tried it again. Last time I made one and soaked it in water was a transfer of a magazine page and it came out lovely. The white copy paper I believe is too soft and thin and it did not come out. I decided to do another one.

Tutorial for all sorts of Transfers-tape-watercolor paper, gel medium

What a fun day doing these transfers to use for collage and mixed media projects. Do them for your artist journal pages too!

Today, me, myself and I made quite a few transfers. I took my vintage postcard and made a bunch of copies on my ink jet printer on plain white paper.

Making transfers is not a science. You do not know how they are going to come out and you almost hold your breath towards the last steps.

I made a transfer with packing tape, a transfer with gel medium on watercolor paper, a gel medium on brown envelopes and a water transfer on watercolor paper.

Let's go step by step for each transfer and you will see posted pictures of the work along with final pieces and also how I used two of them in projects of mine.

Sour Dough Starter

This recipe was found in a small magazine I get called "Above Rubies". In a plastic bowl, pour boiling water over it to sterilize it first. Add one cup of rye flour and one cup of water. Keep it on your counter and cover it with a breathable cloth. I am using a linen towel. Every day for seven days, add the dough to a clean sterilized bowl and add one cup of rye flour and one cup of water. What this does is keep the dough bacteria free. After seven days, your starter should bubble and be somewhat spongy looking. Smell it and if it smells sour that is o.k. Now you will need a three quart container to put the starter in. Feed it one cup of flour and one cup of water everyday. Suggestion: only use a plastic or wooden spoon, metal spoons are not good for the starter. Keep one cup of starter when you use it so that you can keep it growing.

Directions for bread making will come soon!