Continuing Adventures with Kraft Tex

Last week I showed you my first project with the new art material, natural color kraft•tex, and promised to let you know how I finished the envelope purse that I decorated with my orchid image.

I’m a bit nervous about using snaps, since even using a fancy snap-attaching gizmo I’ve had some failures. I was so happy with the piece that I didn’t want to ruin it. After realizing that if my snap-attaching went astray I could cover the flub up with a button, I got out the gizmo. Happily, it worked fine!

I’m still mulling over what kind of strap or handle to add, so stay tuned for the next step in this continuing saga. For my second kraft•tex project, I wanted to make a box. The sturdiness of kraft•tex makes it ideal box-worthy material. I used an envelope and box-making scoring board, but you can easily make this box without one. For the top and bottom of a nesting box that ends up measuring 4 x 4 x 2 inches, start with two 8-inch squares. With a ruler and a bone folder or the dull side of a butter knife, score the bottom of the box first, making four scores at 2 inches in for each side of the box. The top of the box needs to be a little looser to fit over the bottom, so subtract an eighth of an inch from each of the four scores.

I designed the box using my painterly photo of a Douglas Iris that George grew for me. To decorate the top part of the box, I sized one image at 4×4 inches, and then cropped four slices of the image for the sides at 4×2 inches. I flipped the images horizontally and printed on a sheet of Transfer Artist Paper (TAP). Here you can see the box after I transferred the TAP to the top and four sides.

You’ll always get a more vibrant transfer to a white substrate, and I knew that the natural color kraft•tex would darken the transfer. I included another sheet of untransferred TAP printed with the same images for you to see the difference.

To assemble your box, cut slits on all four sides (in the picture above, the slits are at one side of each of the small rectangles that form each corner, which have no image transfer). Fold the corners to the inside and adhere. I used double-sided tape, but you can use glue, paste, or your favorite adhesive. I chose to leave the bottom the beautiful natural tan color of the kraft•tex.

You can paint on top of TAP transfers, so I added touches of gold paint to bring out the wonderful golden yellow color at the center of the iris petals. I also streaked some paint down the sides of the image and at some corners of the box. Here’s a closeup.

I love making boxes, and always try to make one when I find new art materials. I think kraft•tex is ideal for boxes and other structural projects where its sturdiness makes it easier to work with than paper or fabric which you’d have to stiffen or back with stabilizer.

There’s still time for you to sign up for my free demonstration of TAP, Lutradur (and a bit of kraft•tex) next Saturday March 15th at Flax Art & Design in San Francisco. I’ll have the box and envelope purse there for you to see in person! Click here to read my blog post with all of the details. 

Kraft Tex Envelope Purse

Ah, isn’t a thrill to get your hands on a new art product? Playing around to figure out its best qualities, how to use it with other products and with your images and designs … doesn’t that get your creative juices flowing?

I got a roll of natural color kraft•tex, from C&T Publishing (black and white coming soon). C&T describes kraft•tex as a “tough, touchable new paper that combines the best of leather and fabric.”  You can sew, and even wash it!

I’m a bit mail-art obsessed recently, so I decided to make a clutch purse in an envelope design. Rather than print directly onto the kraft•tex I wanted to try it with Transfer Artist Paper (TAP). Transfers usually work best on white or very light backgrounds, and I thought I’d check out how well the natural tan color of the kraft•tex would take a transfer.

I spent a blissful day last weekend photographing orchids at the Pacific Orchid Exposition, and got a striking closeup of a paphiopedelum, which I altered for a painterly effect. I thought the rich colors would blend nicely with the kraft•tex. This is the image:

I re-sized it to fit onto the front of the purse and flipped horizontally so it would transfer with the orientation I wanted – this matters most for text, of course. To fill the rest of the sheet of TAP I designed a kaleidoscope from the original image and tiled it to transfer to the inside of the purse. This is the single tile:

Next, what about the back? The four flaps of the envelope overlap, so I didn’t want to use a single image. I took a portion of the original image, resized it smaller, and tiled it onto a full sheet.

Finally it was time to transfer! TAP works best at the highest iron setting that the surface you’re ironing onto can withstand, so I set it on linen. Taking the front piece first, I cut out closely around the image, placed it face down onto the kraft•tex, covered it with parchment paper to protect the iron, and slowly circled around the entire piece with the iron.

I was very happy with how it turned out, so moved on to transfer the inside piece.

Small details and lines in an image never show up as well in a transfer as on a direct print, but I have come to accept that as the tradeoff for the ease of using a transfer rather than treating a surface for a good direct print.

Finally, for the back, I cut pieces of the TAP sheet roughly to size and transferred them one at a time to each flap.

Drum roll please .. here’s the front of my kraft•tex Paphiopedilum Orchid Envelope Purse!

And the back:

I’m plotting what kind of closure to use. Probably something involving fabric. Stay tuned!

Oh – and I’ll be demonstrating TAP and Lutradur (and, it turns out they want me to also demo kraft•tex) on Saturday March 15th at Flax Art & Design in San Francisco. Free! Click here to read my blog post with all of the details.

Have you used a new art product lately? Please show and tell!

Transfer This! Free Workshop at Flax Art

I’m beyond excited that Flax Art & Design, the fabulous art store in San Francisco, is having me put on a free workshop demonstrating my favorite products, Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) and Lutradur!

I’ve told you about both products in many blog posts (see my list below). TAP is my go-to heat transfer paper, the best I’ve ever used. TAP allows you to easily transfer crisp, colorfast and washable images to almost any surface with your household iron. You can inkjet print, paint, stamp, or draw images onto TAP for a variety of amazing effects.

Lutradur, which I’ve also written extensively about, is a spun-bonded polyester that combines the best qualities of fabric and paper. It’s a fantastic medium for mixed media as well as for artists looking to add a new level of texture to their work.

I’m a demonstrator and teacher for C&T Publishing,makers of TAP and Lutradur. In this free 2-hour lecture/demo at Flax, I’ll show you the entire process – from creating an image on TAP to successfully transferring it to Lutradur. I’ll bring a wide variety of samples to show you the endless potential that these two products make possible, and to spark your creativity and imagination.

The free workshop is March 15th, from 1 to 3 pm. Space is limited, so sign up today to reserve your spot! Call Flax Art & Design at 415.552.2355, or click here to sign up online.

Want to know more?

Check out my book: Inkjet Printing on Lutradur.

CraftArtEdu class: Inkjet Printing on Lutradur.

CraftArtEdu class about using TAP and other heat transfers onto wood.

And here’s a list of my blog posts about Lutradur and TAP:

Egret in flight lutradur art quilt

Transfer artist paper on lutradur

Photos on wooden boxes

Evolon and Transfer Artist Paper

Transfer Artist Paper on cotton

Digital collage on art board

Image Transfer to Wood

More on lutradur, Digital Ground and TAP

Wingspread Mixed-Media Art Doll

Printing with Golden’s Digital Grounds on Lutradur

Butterfly Bliss mini-art hanging

Inkjet Heat Transfer workshop

Explore a creative and fun way to put your photos, artwork, and designs onto a variety of surfaces using heat transfers and an inkjet printer. At this hands-on workshop we’ll  use several different products to transfer your images onto fabric, wood, tile, and more. You’ll complete at least one transfer at the workshop, and a handout is included so you’ll be all set to make original gifts and artwork on your own.

Hummingbird and Watch Collage Box: Transfer Artist Paper

The workshop will be held on Sunday April 28, from noon to 3 pm at The Village Shops and Galleries, 10330 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito (between Stockton and Eureka). Free parking and wheelchair accessible. $40 plus a materials fee.

Swallowtail butterfly tile

This is a versatile, clean, and inexpensive way to place your photos and images onto things that you can’t fit through your printer. I’ll show you tips and tricks to get great results from transfers, and introduce you to the best-quality products, including Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), which I used to make the collage box in the photograph at the top of this post.

Another heat transfer product I like is made by Lazertran, a company that makes the waterslide decals I use in many of my art pieces.  The top of this box is a Lazertran heat transfer.

Lisianthus Box: Lazaertran transfer

Want to learn more? Here are some of my blog posts about using heat transfers:

Photos on wooden boxes, part 1

Photos on metal, part 1

Photos on tiles, part 1

Photos on tiles, part 2

Pre-registration is required for the workshop because I’m limiting the size, so please email me at heidirand@gmail.com.  For the complete list of my workshops and other events, go to the workshop page on my website.

If you’re not in the Bay Area, you can learn the techniques at my online workshop at CraftArtEdu, Decorating Wood With Image Transfers.

Evolon and Transfer Artist Paper

I’ve had a swatch of Evolon laying on my worktable for months, but hadn’t worked up the courage to do anything with it. Evolon is a microfiber fabric made by the company that makes Lutradur. Like Lutradur, it has a lot of industrial and practical uses, but artists and crafters have seized on both of these products to use for our own nefarious purposes. Evolon isn’t readily available in the US yet. I found one online source, Meinke Toy, but alas, the owner is giving up the business. Hopefully she’ll decide to find a buyer rather than completely close the store down. As she describes it, “Evolon is a nonwoven microfiber material made of nylon and polyester. You can paint, dye, print and heat distress Evolon. It will not fray when cut with a scissors and can also be cut using a soldering iron. It excels as a base for stitch, by hand or machine and works well layered with sheer elements above it.” It comes in Soft, which feels a bit like chamois, and Regular, which feels like a leather-like paper. I love the feeling of both of them.

Anyway, finally having a free minute to do a small project, I decided to try out the Evolon. I printed one of my favorite photographs of a hovering hummingbird onto Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), my favorite heat transfer paper. This is the photo:

Whenever I print on TAP I make sure to fill up the whole page so I don’t waste any of it (it’s not cheap), so I added a row of one of my new kaleidoscopes, which I made from my photo of a black and white feather. After I kaleidoscoped the image using Kaleider, I played with the colors for a psychedelic effect. This is a single tile of the kaleidoscope:

It’s best to use TAP soon after printing it — if you can’t, put it back into the sealable plastic bag that it comes in. I headed right down to my studio and ironed the hummingbird onto the Evolon. I set the iron for the polyester setting, but didn’t hold it on the surface for too long. The transfer worked great, going on really smoothly except for a few bits here and there, which added an uneven effect that I like. Then I cut up pieces of the kaleidoscope and ironed it around the edges as a frame. I ironed the Evolon to a piece of stabilizer for a backing, and sewed around the edges. Finally, I stitched on a hen’s feather. This is the piece:

Not sure yet how I’m going to mount or hang it. I’m just enjoying having it here to look at and feel. Really love the smooth, leather-like texture of the Evolon.

I know I didn’t take full advantage of Evolon’s special properties, I just wanted to see how it took the TAP. Next experiment, I’ll coat it with Digital Ground or inkAid and print directly onto it. Now, that’s REALLY my idea of fun!

Wingspread Mixed-Media Art Doll

Wingspread Art Doll

Meet “Wingspread,” a mixed-media art doll that I created, using several different techniques to transfer or attach my original photographs and designs to the soft stuffed cotton doll. Most of Wings’ body is decorated with fragments of my “Golden Butterfly” photo collage. I used Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) to transfer the Golden Butterfly design to the doll.

Wingspread Art Doll - back

Here’s Wingspread’s back.  The back of her (his?) head is a TAP transfer of my mandala design that I made from my photos of a monarch butterfly wing and a peacock feather.   This is the image:

And here’s a closeup of the wings on the back:

For the large wing on the right side I printed my photo of an anise swallowtail butterfly’s spread wing on lutradur coated with Golden’s Digital Ground. I stitched the wing to the center of the back. I also added a small metal wing, and a dangle of pearl, metal and glass beads.

Wingspread’s headdress is made from beautiful black and white striped hen feathers from Barred Rock hens. They are affixed to the head through another piece of lutradur, which I printed using my photo collage of the open wing of a Barred Rock hen.

Wings wears a colorful bowtie, which I made from my original design fabric.

Wingspread is a bit over 20 inches tall, including the feather headdress.  I love art dolls, and it was so fun to make this one, incorporating my butterfly photos and designs, and using so many different techniques and products.   You can see more pictures at my Artfire gallery.  Have you ever made an art doll?  What materials did you use?

Printing on wood veneer

I’ve written before about transferring my inkjet images and designs to wood.  I’ve done some printing directly onto wood that I treated with Golden Paint’s Digital Grounds, but not much because I haven’t had great success finding veneer that’s flat enough to print.  I ordered some veneer online from Rockler, great price – but it was too warped to send safely through the printer, and although I found directions to flatten veneer, I just didn’t have the interest in doing that step on top of all of the others needed to get a good inkjet print. I have been using small flat pieces of the Rockler veneer to make wooden postcards using Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), more about that another day.  Oh, okay, here’s a photo of those wooden postcards – I will write a whole post about my process to make those soon.

Wood veneer postcards using TAP

So anyway, I had great hopes for the first inkjet-treated veneer that I’ve found, available through Cards of Wood, called SMartGRAIN™.  I was excited that it could go through the normal feed of my small printer.  Thicker wood veneer has to go through the straight path of my larger printer.  This veneer is thin enough to curl through the normal feed.   I got the starter kit from Cards of Wood.  Their price for the kit is $25 for 6 letter-sized sheets.  After that, you buy them by the sheet, and they’re $5.25 each.  They also paid the shipping for the sample kit, which was nice. For my first test, I chose an image that I thought would look good on wood, and one that I had printed on veneer that I coated with Digital Grounds, for comparison.  This is the original file for my Koi and Wisteria blended collage.

Koi and wisteria blend

The image is abstract, but there are sharp elements, and I wanted to see whether the inkjet coating was of good enough quality to reproduce the sharpness.  This is the result on the new inkjet-treated product from Cards of Wood:

Koi wisteria collage on wood veneer

This is the same image printed on veneer that I coated with the clear gloss Digital Ground.

Koi wisteria collage on wood veneer treated with Digital Ground

I much prefer the print that I made on the veneer that I treated with Digital Ground.  The detail is much better – part of the collage is a garland of wisteria blooms, and the Cards of Wood print is blurry, with no sharp detail.  The color of the Cards of Wood print is a bit brighter, and it’s close to the original image file, so that’s good.  I’m very finicky about detail and resolution in my prints, though — it’s very  important to me, and it shows how good the quality of the inkjet coating is. I should emphasize that I’ve printed on many unusual surfaces, and I never expect that a print on things other than paper will look the same as on good inkjet paper.  I do know that the color and grain of the wood will affect the quality of the print.  That’s why I did the comparison between the Digital Ground-treated print and the one on SMartGRAIN™ wood.   I’m not convinced that the Cards of Wood product is worth the money.  I will print the rest of the four sheets and let you know my final verdict.

Inkjet Heat Transfer Techniques : One-day workshop

Learn to make creative and unique artwork, crafts and gifts using heat transfers and your inkjet printer. We will explore several products and techniques to transfer images and text to a wide variety of surfaces. You will complete at least two transfers at the workshop.

Masdevallia orchid box

Sunday February 21, 2010, noon to 4.  Canyon Trail Park & Art Center, 6757 Gatto Ave., El Cerrito. $40 plus materials

Swallowtail butterfly tile

You can use heat transfers on fabric, wood, tile, metal, and many other surfaces.  It’s a versatile way to place your photographs and images onto things that you can’t fit through your printer!  For best results, I usually recommend using the  iron-on transfers that your printer manufacturer offers.  There is an exciting new product though, Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), that works very well for transfers.  You’ll have a chance to try TAP at the workshop. I made the frame for this lutradur piece with TAP transferred onto a canvas board.

Butterfly window collage lutradur and TAP

Another heat transfer product I like is by Lazertran, the company that makes the waterslide decals that I use in many of my art pieces.  The top of this box is a lazertran heat transfer.

Lisianthus box heat transfer

Here are some of my blog posts about using heat transfers:

Photos on wooden boxes, part 1

Photos on metal, part 1

Photos on tiles, part 1

For more information, or to pre-register, email me at heidirand@gmail.com.   For the complete list of my workshops and other events, go to the Calendar on my website.

Digital collage on art board

How were the holidays for you? I had two 4-day weekends, bliss!  Between the nature walks that my husband and I took, a couple of holiday parties, and a lot of cleaning-up of my workspace, I only managed to get a bit of artwork done. While organizing my towering piles of craft books I unearthed an 8×10″ gessoed wooden art board and decided to transfer one of my digital collages onto it.

I had designed the collage a few weeks ago.  I started with a photo of a fallen tree with insect trails etched into it. I took the photograph on Albany Hill, a small local hill where monarch butterflies overwinter.  We went in November to see whether any monarchs were there. We only saw a few, sadly — we had seen many more there in previous years.

This is the photograph of the tree:

Fallen log

I blended the photo of the tree with a photograph of a fern that I took during a walk we took in Muir Woods.

Fern

In blending the photographs, I worked to make the colors vivid, and kept the fern image subtle so you only see a tracing of it.

Fallen tree fern collage

I liked the collage, but put it aside and hadn’t decided what to do with it. When I pulled out the art board, I thought it might work well.  Before printing it though, I had an idea. There are a number of designs I have produced from elements of my photographs with a great kaleidoscoping program called Kaleider. I mostly use them for my Garden Design Fabrics that I sew into fabric vases, purses, light switch plates, etc.  I generally don’t use them in my mixed media artwork or digital collages, but I wanted to see if blending one of them with this collage might work.  I found one of the designs that had strong simple lines. Coincidentally, the one I chose to try first was a design that I made from a photograph I took on the same walk we took on Albany Hill, of another fallen log.

This is the kaleidoscoped version of elements of that photograph:

Log Albany Hill kaleidoscope

I very much liked the effect when I blended them!

Fallen tree fern collage with Albany Hill log

Okay, enough explanation about how the blended collage came into being (people often ask me how I make my designs and it’s hard to explain without showing the originals, so I wanted to go into some detail here where I could show them).  On to my process for the transfer to the board. I’ve written much about using transfer artist paper (TAP), a polymer paper that I’ve had very good results with transferring onto several different surfaces.  This would be the first time I’ve tried to transfer onto a gessoed wood board. I printed the collage onto the TAP using the recommended settings: plain paper and medium quality. I printed it on the Epson Workforce 500, which I use for the workshops I teach. The durabrite ultra inks are pigment and have worked well with the TAP.  I forgot the first lesson of printing a transfer: REVERSE the image. Oops, but the collage is abstract so it didn’t really matter.  I placed the TAP on the wood board and began to iron it, using the iron’s highest setting. I could hear the transfer hissing a little, which I’ve come to learn means that it’s working. I peeled up a bit of the TAP and checked, and was delighted to see that the transfer was indeed transferring.  After a few more passes of the iron, the entire transfer had completed.  As with my other TAP pieces, there’s a very pleasing texture caused by the polymer.  To protect the print, I applied two layers of varnish and then went searching for a frame.  I unearthed an old wooden frame of exactly the right size that I had found at an estate sale. I think it complemented the collaged board beautifully! Here it is, see what you think:

Albany Hill digital collage

Lavender and rust art quilt – finishing and framing

When last we met, I had printed and quilted an art quilt from a blended collage of my photographs of a lavender flower and a piece of rusted machinery.  Here’s a photo of the quilt, and this is the post about the process :

Lavender and rust art quilt

Finishing and framing a piece is always a challenge for me. Since I used new techniques and products for the quilt (more about that later!), I wanted that novelty to be reflected in the way I framed it.  Rooting around in my supply closet, I found wooden framing stretcher strips about the right size.  When assembled, the frame was a bit larger than the quilt.  To finish the plain wood in a manner that would reflect and honor the quilt, I printed some of the elements of the lavender and rust collage onto Transfer Artist Paper (see my earlier posts about TAP), and ironed them onto the front of the frame.

TAP on frame

My next challenge was how to attach the quilt to the frame.  I decided to use some kind of ribbon that I would sew to the quilt and thread through screw eyes attached to the inside edge of the frame.  It’s not easy finding good screw eyes! My local fabric store didn’t have anything I liked, and I had to visit three hardware stores to find the size and color that I wanted. I put screw eyes in each of the four sides of the frame.  This is the top right edge, showing the screw eye:

Ribbon and screw eye attachment

I decided that instead of using premade cord or ribbon, I would make it myself.  I started with the image that I used for the quilt and designed ribbons, but rescaled to be much smaller because the ribbon would have to fit  through the screw eyes. I printed it on the fabric that I had used for the quilt and doubled the fabric over so both sides would have a pattern.  I cut thin strips and stitched down the center of each to hold the sides together.  I threaded them through the eyes and tied knots, working with each to get the quilt centered in the frame. This is a closeup of the ribbon at the center right side of the frame:

Ribbon tied through screw eye

And this is the quilt tied to the frame at the six eyes:

Quilt in frame

The last challenge: how to hang the framed quilt? I didn’t want to string a wire across the back because that would show through the gaps. I couldn’t use a sawtooth because the gallery that I show my work in (a plug here for the Pinole Artisan galleries) doesn’t allow those. I decided to echo the screw eyes used on the inside, and put two at the top of the frame.  I made another long ribbon, threaded it through the eyes, doubled it over and stitched it together. The framed quilt now hangs flush against the wall from a hook or nail. This is it:

Hanging framed art quilt

If you’re wondering about the back of the frame, it’s nothing fancy. I finished it by painting the plain wood with a few coats of white gesso.  I solved the eternal question of how to sign an art quilt (many people print labels on fabric and sew them to the back), by signing the gessoed surface with a pigment ink pen. This is how the back looks:

Back of the quilt

If you’re interested in learning how to print on fabric, check out my online class at CraftEdu.  I also offer the class with captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Lavender and rust art quilt