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

Butterfly Bliss mini-art hanging

These days my creativity is best sparked by challenges organized by groups I’m in. I haven’t made an art hanging in a while, so when the call-out came to make a piece using some art material (I’ll let you know which when the challenge is over), I decided to use it in a mini-art quilt. As it’s prime butterfly season, incorporating my favorite flying beauties into the piece was a gimme.

I had the butterflies in my stash. They were photographs I took of an anise swallowtail and a monarch butterfly that we raised and released. I printed the photos onto lutradur that I treated with Golden Paint Digital Grounds. When I need to print something onto lutradur, I fill the entire sheet with images so as not to waste any of the treated material.

To set off the butterflies, I sewed them to some gauzy fabric bits that came in a flea-market home decor fabric sample book. For the background, I chose another larger piece from the sample book.

I chose another piece from the sample book as a backing for a finished look, and slid a piece of firm stabilizer in between so it will hang without folding. I folded the top over and strung a leather cord through before I sewed it closed, for an easy hanger.

I love art quilts because they can be as simple or as complicated as you wish. If you don’t like to sew you can even just use double sided tape to add elements and make the seams. They’re a great use to upcycle discarded clothing or other fabrics. Have you made an art quilt? Post links here to any of yours that you’d like to show!

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!

Art where you work

Where I work there’s a long long hallway, and time was, when you’d be walking down it from here to there, it would be the most boring walk – unless you brought a book along to read as you went — which I often did.  Somewhat more than a year ago, an enterprising fellow decided to jump through the hoops necessary to bring art to the hallway.  He hung a marvelous set of pieces, mostly I believe from the collections of fellow employees and bosses.  And recently he announced that he was taking suggestions for a new set of art – it could be employees’ work, or our family members’, or pieces from our collections. Guess whose hand went up fast?  Pick me! Pick me!  And so I got picked to adorn a section of that long grey concrete hallway — to show the people I work with, most of whom have no idea what I do when I leave work, the arty side of me.

But what to choose!  The pieces had to be hang-up-able, none of my fabric vases or bowls, no mixed-media boxes, no bowties or lutradur butterfly earrings.  I did want to show some of the unusual and innovative materials and processes that I use, and I wanted to show my range.  So what do you think — here’s my display:

A closer view of the pieces on the left side (if you click on the picture you can see it a bit larger):

First on the left is your basic framed print, my shot of an odontoglossum orchid (say that 3 times fast), below that is my mixed media piece called Hidden Treasure, which is a heat transfer to canvas of a self-portrait double exposure I took of myself years ago. If it’s familiar to you, we’re probably Facebook friends, because the image is my FB avatar.   Above that to the right is my Lavender Rust art quilt in a frame that I finished with Transfer Artist Paper.  I’ve written about my process in making the quilt at this link. And I’ve written about finishing it and framing it at this link. Then the last piece in this section is a framed print of my Bamboo image, which is a photograph of a bamboo shoot in our garden that I simplified and rendered to look like a pencil drawing.

And the other side:

First at the left top is my Koi Pond and Wisteria blended collage, which I printed on lutradur.  I framed it in a glass floating frame, to emphasize the translucency of the lutradur. This is my blog post talking about the piece.  Below that is my Fallen Log and Fossil blended collage, which is a Transfer Artist Paper transfer to an art board.  This is my blog post about that piece. Above that to the right is a small art quilt, a print of my Iris Dream blended collage on cotton, which I quilted with metallic thread and mounted on a piece of metal mesh and adorned with pearls stitched to the mesh at random.  Finally at the bottom right is another framed print, this one of my Egret Swirl image – a photograph of an egret fishing in Lake Merritt, which I rendered to look a bit abstract and dreamy.

Next week he’ll put up the bios that we wrote and the blurbs for each piece, and I’m very curious to see whether people let me know what they think.  Before I left work today, I walked down the hallway and two of my co-workers were looking at the Hidden Treasure piece.   Near the top is a piece of copper that I embossed with the title of the piece: “Hidden Treasure”.  They weren’t sure what it said, so I just sidled over and said, “Yeah, it’s ‘hidden treasure'”.   I probably shouldn’t have intruded, they didn’t react, but oh well.

So I didn’t tell you about the rest of the art along the long hallway — there are some incredible underwater photographs printed on canvas, and two sublime quilts.  I love the variety of the entire collection.  Anyway, I’m just sayin’ — if you need a push to get the courage up to ask to adorn a blank wall where you work, where you get your coffee every morning, whatever, consider yourself pushed!

Exploring lutradur : one-day workshop

Workshop taught by Heidi Rand

Sunday October 24, 2010, noon to 3:30 p.m.

$40 + materials

Learn to create art quilts and other arts & crafts with this exciting new product that combines the best qualities of fabric and paper.  Lutradur looks, feels and folds like translucent paper and doesn’t tear or fray. It’s the perfect medium for a wide variety of sewing, mixed media art and crafting.

I will give an overview and demonstrate many ways to use lutradur: sewing, inkjet prints, transfers, heat gun, soldering iron, stamps, and more… You will have time to explore a variety of effects to create a mixed media art project.

Bring your favorite art materials to try on lutradur, as well as any photos, beads, etc. for your personal project.  Bring your sewing machine if you want to use it to sew your project.

The workshop will be held at the Canyon Trail Park Art Center in El Cerrito. Class size is limited and pre-registration is required, so if you’re interested, please email me at heidirand@gmail.com

Upcoming workshops:

November 21, 2010, noon to 3:30 p.m., Handmade Gifts With Your Inkjet Printer

February 20, 2011, noon to 3:30 p.m., Inkjet Printing on Fabric

Interested? Please email me

Exploring Lutradur : one-day workshop

Workshop taught by Heidi Rand

New Pieces Quilt Store & Gallery, Berkeley California

Saturday January 23rd – noon to 3:30 p.m.
$34 + materials

Butterfly window collage on lutradur

Learn to create art quilts and other arts & crafts with this exciting new product that combines the best qualities of fabric and paper.  Lutradur looks, feels and folds like translucent paper and doesn’t tear or fray. It’s the perfect medium for a wide variety of sewing, mixed media art and crafting.

Egret in flight lutradur hanging

I will give an overview and demonstrate many ways to use lutradur: sewing, inkjet prints, transfers, heat gun, soldering iron, stamps, and more… You will have time to explore a variety of effects to create a mixed media art project.

Lutradur iris purse

Bring your favorite art materials to try on lutradur, as well as any photos, beads, etc. for your personal project.  Bring your sewing machine if you want to use it to sew your project.

Pre-registration required.  Please call New Pieces at (510) 527-6779 to pre-register, or if you have questions, please email me at HeidiRand@gmail.com or call 510.919-4652.

The next few months’ upcoming workshops:

Sunday February 21, 2010, noon to 4. Inkjet heat transfer techniques. El Cerrito Canyon Trail Art Center.

Saturday, March 6, 2010, noon to 4. Inkjet printing on fabric. New Pieces Quilt Store, Berkeley.

Saturday May 22, 2010, noon to 3:30. Inkjet printing on fabric. El Cerrito Canyon Trail Art Center

Saturday June 19, 2010, noon to 4. Art quilts and fabric hangings. El Cerrito Canyon Trail Art Center

Interested? Please email me

Egret in flight lutradur art quilt

I took a photograph of a gorgeous Great White Egret flying at the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline in Point Richmond.  I blended it with my photograph of an allium flower in bloom, ending up with this collage:

Egret in flight

I printed the blended collage onto lutradur that I coated with matte-for-porous-surfaces Digital Ground (for more on that process, see my prior detailed posts about printing on lutradur with Digital Ground).  I thought the print turned out very well – the detail in the egret’s wings is nearly as good as a print on inkjet paper, and the color is accurate and saturated.

I decided to use the piece in an art quilt. I backed the lutradur print with soft batting and did some free motion stitching around the abstract lines, using a few different colored threads.  Here are two closeups of some of the stitching:

Egret in flight closeup

Closeup of stitching

For the frame, I chose an elegant dark gold silky fabric. The lutradur print is about 7.5 x 11 inches, and I added about 2 inches to each side for the frame.  I added another layer of batting to the back of the gold fabric, and did more free motion stitching to adhere the backing to the lutradur print.

I decided to use a simple pillow-type technique to finish the piece.  I chose a patterned sturdy off-white fabric for the backing, and sewed them face to face, leaving an opening to turn the piece right side out and small openings on both sides near the top for my hanging apparatus.  This is the finished piece:

Egret in flight art quilt

To hang it, I painted a wood dowel with dark gold paint, and slid it through the openings at the top.  I wrapped a length of wire link chain around each side. Here’s a closeup:

The hanger

This is the finished piece as it hangs from the chain:

Egret in flight art quilt

A word about inspiration and motivation! I printed this piece months ago, but it had been lying in my “to make into something” pile since then. I’ll be teaching a workshop on using lutradur at the New Pieces Quilt Store on January 23rd, and I wanted a piece to show their customers how lutradur can be used in their quilts. This was the result ….

Exploring Lutradur : One-day Workshop

Workshop taught by Heidi Rand

Canyon Trail Park & Art Center, El Cerrito
Sunday September 13th – noon to 3:30 p.m.
$35 + materials

Butterfly window collage on lutradur

Learn ways to create personal art with this exciting new product that combines the best qualities of fabric and paper.  Lutradur looks, feels and folds like translucent paper and doesn’t tear or fray. It’s the perfect medium for a wide variety of mixed media art, crafting, and sewing.

I will give an overview and demonstrate many ways to use lutradur: sewing, inkjet prints, transfers, heat gun, soldering iron, stamps, and more…
You will have time to explore a variety of effects to create a mixed media art project.

I will provide paints and other basic supplies.  Bring your favorite art materials to try on lutradur, as well as any photos, beads, etc. for your personal project.

Email me at HeidiRand@gmail.com or call 510.919-4652

The schedule of my upcoming workshops, all in Canyon Trail Art Center, El Cerrito CA

Sunday September 13, 2009, noon to 3:30. Exploring Lutradur

Sunday October 25, 2009, noon to 4. Inkjet transfer techniques

Sunday November 15, 2009, noon to 3:30. Handmade gifts with your inkjet printer

Saturday January 16, 2010, noon to 3:30. Handmade jewelry with your inkjet printer

Sunday February 21, 2010, noon to 4. Inkjet heat transfer techniques

Interested in any? Please email me

Printing with Golden’s Digital Grounds on Lutradur

I made a blended photo collage from my photographs of a hen’s feather and a white phalaenopsis orchid. The end design is abstract, although you can see the feather shape repeated three times in the center of the piece. I shifted the colors to get subtle golds and shades of blue.

Phalaenopsis and feather collage

I prepared a piece of lutradur for inkjet printing by coating it with Golden’s Digital Ground matte (see my posts about lutradur and digital ground), and printed the collage. I backed the print with thick Pellon interfacing, and sewed along some of the lines of the image.

This is the printed/quilted piece (it’s 5 by 7 inches):

Phal/feather collage on lutradur

This is a closeup of part of the lutradur print, to show the quilting:

Phal/feather collage printed on lutradur and quilted

I decided to finish the lutradur print by mounting it to a 9 by 12 inch canvas board.  To enlarge the phal/feather image so it would fill the blank portions of the board, I printed segments of the image on Transfer Artist Paper (see my posts about TAP).  I transferred the segments to the canvas board with my iron set on the cotton setting.

Phal/feather collage, TAP on canvas board

This is a closeup of one of the corners.  The TAP transfer to the cotton board resulted in a pleasing texture, and the abstract nature of the design worked well with the transfer, I think.

Phal/feather collage - TAP on canvas

When the weather permits, I will spray the piece with fixative (probably Golden’s new archival varnish because that was designed for use with digital grounds prints).

The end piece, with the lutradur adhered to the center of the canvas board, will look like this:

Phal/feather collage, lutradur and TAP on canvas

To hang, I will probably drill two small holes near the top of the piece and string with metal chain.  Alternatively, I might put the piece into a frame.    I finally decided how to hang the piece!  I  drilled two small holes near the top.  I wanted to reinforce the holes, but normal eyelets aren’t long enough to go through the canvas board and grab onto the other side.  The only grommets I could find were much too large for the effect I wanted.  I finally found some slightly longer eyelets and set them.  I debated stringing decorative chain or wire, but dug out some raw leather cord I have, and decided it worked well with the tone of the piece.  I’m very happy with it now, see what you think.

Upper corner of piece with leather cord as hanger

Completed piece, with leather cord as hanger

Golden Paint’s Digital Grounds products, part 1

Once again to my love of printing on unusual surfaces.  I haven’t filled in a lot of my background on that, it’s coming, but I want to jump ahead a bit to something new on the market.  Golden Paints, a wonderful company, has just come out with their Digital Grounds line of products, three different substances that, when applied to surfaces, make them receptive to inkjet printing.  There’s so much information on their website, I won’t repeat it all here, just the basics and then my experience.  I know that there’s a similar product that has been on the market for quite awhile, inkAID.  I never tried inkAID although I have read a lot of great things about it.

The three Digital Grounds products they’re offering are white matte for porous surfaces, clear gloss, and gloss for non-porous surfaces.  I first tried the white matte.  I had some lutradur (a non-woven polyester material) that I had tried printing on directly last year.  The results with direct printing (no surface preparation) were so-so, the images were not sharp and the colors were muted.  That’s okay if you want that effect, but I was after images that looked more like what I could get on injket paper.  Well, I sure got that with the matte digital ground.

I got a small bottle to try out.  You tap the bottle on a surface to free a mixing ball inside, then rock it back and forth for a minute.  Apply the ground with a foam brush.  I cut the lutradur and taped it to some newspaper, then brushed in one direction.  I had a fan blowing away the fumes.  It doesn’t smell too bad but it’s not good to inhale, so work with good ventilation.  I also used gloves to protect my hands.  It took quite a few applications to cover the lutradur.  I then taped it up and directed a fan to dry it.  After drying (maybe half an hour with the fan), I taped it back to the newspaper and brushed on another layer in the opposite direction.  You can wash the brush out with soap and water.

I let it totally dry over night and printed it the next day.  I nearly always use the setting for enhanced matte on my Epson 2400, so I tried that setting with the coated lutradur.  I’m printing with the black matte ink these days and have no idea how the glossy black would work.   The lutradur went into the printer beautifully.  I didn’t need to even tape the leading edge, but that’s always an option when you’re having trouble getting something to feed into the printer.  I used the normal paper feed, there was no problem at all with the lutradur getting around the curve — the digital ground was completely flexible.

I thought the results were just beautiful.  I know I’m repeating myself, but the sharpness and saturation were like what I get from good inkjet paper.  There were some tiny random holes where the digital ground hadn’t adhered, but that’s just part of printing on something that’s not paper or a solid surface, it’s part of the effect that I wanted.

This is my photograph of a swallowtail butterfly printed on lutradur.

Swallowtail butterfly photograph printed on lutradur coated with Golden Digital Ground

I wasn’t sure how to finish it, so I decided to just hang it from a dried branch of a curly willow tree from our garden.  I attached it to the branch with baling wire that I curled in random patterns.  I also attached some curled baling wire to 3 holes in the bottom of the print.  Not sure if I mentioned before, but one of the qualities I love about lutradur is that you can cut it but it won’t rip or tear, so whereas with fabric you’d have to reinforce the holes, with lutradur you can poke or cut a hole and know that it won’t rip through.

By the way, if you’re interested in butterflies, this is an anise swallowtail butterfly that we hatched.  We gather the eggs (the size of a large pinhead) from fennel plants in our garden or around town, keep them in a small bottle until they hatch into tiny caterpillars, then transfer them to a larger bottle where we feed them the fennel or yampah (sp?) if we can find it – that’s their native food source but it’s hard to find these days around here.  They change into the chrysalis, and we keep them until they emerge, at which point we release them after a few hours.

If  you want to learn how to print on lutradur using inkAID or Digital Grounds, I have an online class on craftedu. There’s a free preview at the beginning, check it out!