Today I am going to walk you through the process of using X-Press It’s TripleTac Glue as a transfer medium.
I could have also called this blog post “turning bad into good”!
I will show you how to work through a process, even when things don’t go quite how you expect and not giving up on a creative thought.
Using TripleTac as a transfer medium is one of my favourite techniques to play with.
It is super easy.
All you need is a canvas, X-Press It TripleTac Glue and something to transfer. It could be a pattern paper print, a print from a magazine or a photo.
Firstly the photo.
The photo is printed straight onto copy paper.
Did I mention this technique was easy?
It doesn’t matter if it’s inkjet or laser, although laser works better.
You will notice my photo is on the dark side.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to look once transferred so used the whole process as an experiment.
Once you’ve selected your canvas and printed off a photo to fit
cover the photo side of the paper with TripleTac.
Then place this side of the paper down on to your canvas.
Allow the glue to dry, you can use a heat gun or allow to dry naturally (which can take a few hours but best results are from waiting 24 hours).
Now the great thing about this technique is that you can use the transfer medium on all sorts of things.
Transfer on to wood, cardboard or even cardstock. Anything flat that won’t move when you follow the next part of the process.
Once the glue is dry, use a paint brush and apply some water
Then working in small sections start rubbing back the layer of paper to reveal the photo below.
By working in small sections you will soon see where the paper still needs rubbing back.
Be careful not to rub too hard or too far as you will start to remove the photo.
You will see this happened in small sections of my canvas. You will see that I made this “mistake” work to my advantage.
Once you have removed the paper membrane from the whole canvas give it a clean with a damp cloth (I like to use my hand that has been dampened with a little water).
Allow to dry. Then cover with another coat of TripleTac to seal the print, making sure the coat is flat or it will dry streaky (as it did on my canvas…more on that below)
And that’s the whole process.
Told you it was easy!
You can now add some paint around the edge of your canvas to finish it off.
For my canvas I took it a little step further.
I have painted some layers around my photo and then covered the “white space” with some text.
I used the glue streaks to my advantage by highlighting them to emphasis texture and dimension.
The result
Hopefully this inspires you to give this technique a go.
Why not grab your bottle of TripleTac and experiment.
Have a creative week
Sharmaine
