Thursday, July 30, 2009

Recycling Again

Old postcard, coated with gesso, hand drawn boarder, gel transfer of women on the beach. Before I added the gel transfer to the card I wrote a message that shows through underneath, since this card had never been mailed.

Another old postcard, coated with thinned gesso so that the original message, stamp and postmark shows. The heart was cut from an old dictionary page I had stamped with a pattern. I added a blue butterfly.

Another experiment with a gel transfer. This time I scanned an old postcard, altered the colored to age it, then made the transfer from the scanned image. I used gesso on the card, allowing some writing and the stamp and cancellation to show. Then I added a strip of dictionary page, then the gel transfer. I finally used a date stamp and the letters SWAK.

I hate wasting things, and am fascinated by old paper ephemera. It has been drizzly and cool here, so yesterday I played with a stack of very mundane postcards (Motel 6, for example) , seeing how I could change them, use some of the stacks and drawers of images and materials I have acquired.

What do you think? What appeals or falls short? I'd love feedback on this project. Would people buy them? Would demoonstrating the process make an interesting workshop?

I have also simply coated cards with gesso, thinking I'd try little watercolors on our upcoming trip to Colorado. Maybe I should try one ahead of time...

6 comments:

Charlene Brown said...

I think this is a very good idea for a workshop. Lots of people have piles or files of 'ephemera' that is (sometimes just barely) too good to throw out, but could be like buried treasure if they learned how to use it to achieve results like yours.

Kim said...

Your post is so timely. After making an unsuccessful attempt with a gel transparency and transfering it to a canvas board collage, I spent sometime today trying to figure out how to do transfers with that see through quality. I'm still confused by the different methods.

Thanks for sharing your process. Very interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that you had a stamp on the dictionary page.

I like your third card especially on the left where the text shows through.

What method do you think Randel Plowman uses in his collage a day pieces to get that see through quality?

Kim Printz said...

very cool! i especially like the last one with the bright green. your transfer looks great!

Kim Printz said...

i just read the other kim's comment on randel plowman. he prints his material on vellum, the uses gloss medium, puts the transfer face down when the medium is wet, then burnishes the image and pulls off the paper. i've had some success with this, but better luck with using regular computer paper and rubbing the paper off the back after i've glued it down with gloss medium.

Kim said...

Thanks, Paperwerks!

Anonymous said...

I think these are wonderful and look like they were a lot of fun to create. My favorite is the last one but I'm not sure I can say why. Maybe because there is a little more going on that draws my eye around it. You inspire me to stop being so serious and play more in the studio!