This months picture was difficult for a few of the Calendar Girls, I wasn't feeling very inspired but as I was sorting through my stencils for another project, I found a simple flower shape, I think it came free with a magazine. I decided I would try it out on a small canvas and then use the canvas as inspiration for a postcard.
I did originally use a purple and gold for my colours to link it in with the original picture. that didn't last long and I started layering different colours onto the canvas.
Below is a close up scan of the canvas, the colours are a bit more turquoise than shown.
For my first attempt at creating the postcard I printed the image onto a sheet of T-shirt transfer paper and ironed one onto silk, the other onto muslin,
This is the one on silk, and it has white patches on it, the one on muslin was even worse it was more white than colour, I haven't had this happen before and have no idea why it happened. it was my last sheet of transfer paper, so I couldn't try again.
My next attempt was to iron some silk organza onto freezer paper to print on. I have done this
many times with other printers, but my Epson DX400 made some very strange noises and the paper disappeared completely, I looked in the feed and where it should have come out, nothing ?
waited until DH came home and he took the top off the machine still nothing, where the heck was it, DH got the torch out and looked down the side and there it was in a crumpled ball stuffed down the edge of the printer:(
Decided to buy Extravorganza, it printed out beautifully, but once removed from the backing paper it was too pale to show up on any coloured backing.
Final try was to use Lazertran's metal for ink jet printers, looks good so far, I was going to stitch into the final surface, but at this late stage, with everything that has gone wrong I think I will leave well alone.
I stuck the metallic paper to pelmet vilene and backed one postcard with watercolour paper, not nice to stitch into, it was sticking and wouldn't move making the zigzag thicker in places, and I noticed the foot had scraped the surface of the design in places. tried another one with two layers of pelmet vilene, a little easier to stitch into but still sticking in places.
6 comments:
What a learning curve to get one postcard :)
Its turned out beautiful though. The others look good too, I can't see why you weren't hap;py with them.
I love the idea of scanning an original piece of artwork to make into a postcard - definitely worth making a note of for future use. :)
P.S. Sorry about the ; inside happy - never could type properly standing up *LOL*
You're a woman of great patience! I'm impressed by your stick-to-it-ness. Good job!
Phew, what a trial. But it looks fantastic at the end and many steps along the way.
Love the way you think things out.
Nothing will deter you from following your chosen path, it seems! I would have chucked that idea and tried another after the second attempt... and after disassembling the printer myself!
Thanks for the comment on my blog. ;-)) Marilyn aka Wabbit
Wow!! you poor thing, this really was one of those projects that bites you back from the start, but the end result was definitely worth it, it's gorgeous.
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