Photo Transfer An Image transfer is a process of lifting the toner of a printed image, the ink, and applying it to another surface. The image itself gets transferred, but it is usually a more transparent image than the original, giving it a softer look. Photo Emulsion Lift A photograph is printed onto a substrate with a thin clear coating. The print is soaked overnight to release it from the backing material. The image is then floated on top of a subtract. The true beauty is the small folds and wrinkles that form when transferring the sheer image. Acrylic Poured Photograph An Image is printed onto photographic paper and an acrylic layer is hand poured over the top to make the photo glossy. The acrylic makes the image “pop.” Gilded Stone Vellum Print The image is printed onto vellum and backed with ground stone and gypsum mixture using an archival sizing that bonds the thin ground stone mixture to the substrate. The viewing light passes through the vellum making the white stone mixture reflect in the artwork.
Gilded Silver Vellum Print The image is printed onto vellum and backed with silver leaf using an archival sizing that bonds the thin metal leaf to the substrate. The viewing light passes through the vellum making the silver reflect in the artwork. Gilded Gold Vellum Print The image is printed onto vellum and backed with 23kt gold leaf using an archival sizing that bonds the thin metal leaf to the substrate. The viewing light passes through the vellum making the gold reflect in the artwork.
Digital Watercolor Starting with a digital image, a digital watercolor is created in the computer, using artistic splashes and brushes unique to each piece.
Gelatin Fresco The image is printed onto a treated transparency. A mixture of pig marrow gelatin, water, sodium benzoate, and ground marble is mixed and poured onto a gessoed substrate. The mixture is cooled and the image is rolled on top of the gelatin mixture. When the transparency is removed the image remains. It is allowed to harden, forming a plaster like surface, and the edges are sanded.
Emulsion Lift On Glass A photograph is printed onto a substrate with a thin clear coating, making a photo skin. The print is soaked overnight to release it from the backing material. This photo skin is the thickness of saran wrap. The image is then floated and adhered on top of a piece of glass. The true beauty is the small folds, wrinkles, and uneven edges that form when transferring the sheer image onto the glass. The finished effect has a 3D appearance.
Gilded Vellum I am always looking for different and unique ways to process and print my images. I love the antique glass plate photographs and have made some of the prints myself using treated glass, vintage cameras, and hazardous chemicals to duplicate the old process. Working with the chemicals has its own sets of problems which include accessibility, physical protection, and disposal of the by products. This led me to find other ways to accomplish the desired effects I am looking for. By printing on vellum, I am able to accomplish my desire for being different and not harming myself or the environment. The basic process involves printing an image on translucent vellum and then applying gold or silver leaf to the back of the print. The result is an image that seems illuminated or glows. Using a specially coated, acid-free vellum works perfectly in a photo printer for fine art printing. The vellum is especially suited for gilding prints with metal leaf. The inkjet vellum is archival. A luxurious translucent vellum ideally suited for platinum, palladium, Van Dyke, cyanotype and other classic hand coated darkroom processes is also available. This acid-free vellum withstands the rigors of tray washing for gilding handcrafted prints with metal leaf. This vellum is also archival. The paper thin metal leaf comes in precious metals and in faux metal versions with a variety of colors. The metal is adhered to the back of the print with archival adhesive. The print is varnished on both the front and the back to give the appearance of a clear substrate and floating print. The print looks illuminated with the metal shining through. Some prints have a subtle appearance while others glow vividly. The metal is impossible to adhere completely flat so the texture that the wrinkles give changes the way that light shines into the finished photograph and is unique to each print, insuring that no two prints are alike.
Emulsion Lift Transfer I am often asked what is an emulsion lift. It all started with the Polaroid Instamatic Camera phase. Instant photography was invented in 1947 by Edwin Land, the owner of Polaroid. His technique allowed images to self-develop within a few seconds after shooting. Thanks to that feature, it revolutionized modern photography, and the word “Polaroid” became synonymous with instant photography. The popular and fashionable Polaroid era began, lasting nearly 60 years. People began to play with the process. Originally, Polaroid transfers and lifts were made with pull-apart Polaroid films but all of those films are discontinued. They can be found on eBay but are expensive. A Polaroid emulsion lift is the process of removing the thin gelatinous layer that contains the image away from the plastic backing of the Polaroid print, separating the top layer (emulsion layer) and placing it on paper or another substrate, thus floating it on to a new surface. Real Polaroid transfers provide a very unique effect, most notably around the edges of the photo. I am also enamored with the old photographs that were developed on glass. I like the way the light shines through them and the smooth shiny finish of the glass. Being intrigued with Polaroid Lifts and photographs printed on glass, I ended up down the rabbit hole of Photo Emulsion Lifts on Glass. With Polaroid film only available on the secondary market and also being limited by film size, I needed a method of creating an emulsion that I could apply to my photograph, remove the printed emulsion layer, and float it onto the glass. My Photo Emulsion Lifts are created by printing a photo onto a speciality coated transparency. A glue like product is applied to the surface of the photo in multiple layers, drying each layer.. The dried emulsion is soaked until it lifts off the substrate forming a skin about the thickness of suran wrap. While in the water, a piece of glass is slid under the skin and is slowly removed from the water. Using a brayer, the air bubbles are removed leaving the skin mounted onto the glass. The edges naturally curl, fold over, and change shape causing a unique finish to each piece of art that can not be duplicated. Because the skin stretches and warps, and the edges all react to the surface differently, every piece of artwork is unique and can not be exactly duplicated.
Photo Gravure The Photogravure process was important in 19th-century photography, but by the 20th century was only used by some fine art photographers. By the mid-century it was almost extinct, but has seen a limited revival. The original photogravure (in French héliogravure) is a process for printing photographs. A copper plate was grained or had an added pattern to the plate. It was then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph. Photogravure registers a wide variety of tones, through the transfer of etching ink from an etched copper plate to special dampened paper run through an etching press. The unique tonal range comes from photogravure's variable depth of etch, which means, the shadows are etched many times deeper than the highlights. The newer technique of the digital direct-to-plate photogravure process was developed where the photograph is printed onto a polymer plate using a flatbed printer. The flatbed printer etches a random dot pattern into the plate in a completely controlled, precise way. The plate is exposed under UV light The plate is then developed in water. After proper drying and curing, the plate can be inked and printed. The exposure produces an "etched" polymer plate with many thousands of indentations of varying depth which hold ink. This is transferred as a continuous tone image to a sheet of paper. Depending on the quality, the resulting print may look similar to or the same as those produced with the traditional photogravure process. A stiff, oily intaglio printing ink is applied to the whole surface of the plate. The plate is then gently wiped with tarlatans to remove the excess ink and to force the ink into the recesses or wells of the plate. It is finally wiped with the heal of the hand in lite, sweeping strokes. This removes the excess ink from the polished highlights and high points leaving ink in the etched areas. After the edges are cleaned, the plate is placed on the printing bed of an intaglio press. It is covered with a sheet of dampened rag paper and then three layers of thin wool blankets. The plate and paper are run through the press at high pressure. The high pressure pushes the fibers of the dampened paper into the wells of the plate which then transfers the ink onto the paper thereby creating the impression called intaglio printing. The paper is carefully peeled off the plate and placed between blotters and weighted so it will dry flat. The plate can now be re-inked for another impression or it can be cleaned for storage. Chine Collé is a technique, used in conjunction with the printmaking etching processes. This results in a two-layered paper support consisting of a tissue-thin paper, cut to the size of the printing plate, and a larger, thicker support paper below. Both the tissue and the support sheet are placed on top of the inked plate and run together through the printing press, with a thin layer of adhesive between them to reinforce the bond produced through the pressure of the press. The process creates a subtle, delicate backdrop to the printed image. Chine is the French word for China, referring to the fact that the thin paper originally used with this technique was imported from China. In addition to China, paper was also imported from India or Japan. Collé is the French word for “glued." The final Photogravure print is a long and detailed process resulting in a beautiful fine art print. Creating a one of a kind print is the appeal, even though the plate can be re-used, it can never be inked and printed exactly the same. The differences make each final print unique and distinctive.
