Pixiq

Just in time for the Valentine’s Day. You can make beautiful homemade cards using Sheer Heaven paper (which you can get at Cre8it.com) and an inkjet printer. Sheer Heaven is a mid-weight, translucent, synthetic sheet that has had a “tooth” etched into one surface. This means that, unlike other synthetics, Sheer Heaven is absorbent enough to be used for watercolor, silk dyes, acrylics, and yes, even oil paints. No amount of moisture will warp, wrinkle, or tear the sheet. You can dye Sheer Heaven and it will dry perfectly flat. And for dry media, like colored pencils and pastels, the tooth on Sheer Heaven holds much more pigment build-up than bond paper, and the tooth does not flatten. 

 Materials Needed for Sheer Heaven Transfer
•  Sheer Heaven paper
•  Inkjet printer
•  70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol (do not use 90% or ethyl rubbing alcohol)
•  Spray bottle (for the alcohol)
•  Burnishing tool, such as a bone folder or spoon
•  Porous receiver surface (the transfer technique won’t work on non-porous surfaces; the ink cannot sink into the substrate and will blur)

 Some of the substrates I have used successfully include watercolor paper, print paper, absorbent card stock, muslin fabric, ultra suede fabric, balsa wood, tissue wrapping paper, handmade papers, journal pages, and yes, even bisque fired unglazed tile.

Step 1: Make an inkjet print copy onto a sheet of Sheer Heaven paper, making sure that you print to the rough, suede-like side. (You can print on the Sheer Heaven paper at any time and save the print—you don’t need to transfer the image to your substrate right away.) Remember that a print will appear reversed on your substrate using this method, so first create a mirror image if required (especially if there are words in your image) using your image-processing program.

 Step 2: Holding the Sheer Heaven paper flat and parallel to the floor, spray the printed image with rubbing alcohol (70%), covering the area with a light mist. The sprayed surface should appear glossy, not saturated or runny. Angling the paper underneath a strong light should show if the image is covered evenly.

 Step 3: Place the Sheer Heaven print face-side down onto the porous substrate. The alcohol on the surface of the Sheer Heaven paper makes it slightly tacky, so the paper will adhere to the substrate. Burnish the print with a bone folder or the back of a spoon or another similar tool. The better the contact with the substrate, the more perfect the image transfer. You will notice a translucent quality of the Sheer Heaven paper when placed on top of the substrate.

 Step 4: Lift the Sheer Heaven transfer from the substrate. Notice that often some ink remains on the Sheer Heaven, called a ghost). That ghost can sometimes make for an interesting piece of art itself, and can be augmented to create a completely different outcome.

 To learn more about this and many more techniques, get my book, Digital Image Transfer: Creating Art With Your Photography.  As always, ever art.