Saturday, May 16, 2009

Tutorial: How to do photocopy transfer

Do you remember my "I little bit of lingerie" illustration. If not, you can see it here.
The lace background was done with photocopies transfers. I wanted to share this technique with you. It's very useful but I bit smelly because of the acetone.
So here is what you need
- acetone
- a photocopy ( color or black and white)
- a piece of paper ( the photocopy will be transferred on it) ( in this case, I'm using tracing paper because it creates almost perfect transfer. Textured paper give a lest clean result. Just try it to see the difference)
- scotch tape
- a metal spoon ( or any metal object)



Here is a video I made to show you the whole process. It's very simple. Take your photocopy, place the photocopied side toward the paper. You can take color photocopies or black and white photocopies. Both work but some color don't transfer as well, like yellow. Take a natural fiber brush. This one is made out of pork hair and it's very cheap. Acetone will melt plastic brushes.
Dip your brush in the acetone and brush your photocopy after taping it. Apply pressure. Be careful not to put too much acetone or your transfer will diffuse and be a bit blurry. To make the transfer perfect, I apply pressure with a metal object, in this case a spoon. And voila, you are done.
Don't forget that the type of paper will also change the quality of your transfer.
Hope it help and that you will have fun trying this technique
Don't forget to close the acetone otherwise you will get a headache, it's pretty toxic!

2 comments:

tina said...

Is it printed on a jet-ink or lazer printer?

Very useful tip, btw, I saw your video on YouTube

W A L L A C E said...

nice! thanks for the video/tips.

 
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