Welcome to the first installment of 'Try-It-Out Tuesdays'! Today I'm trying out a tutorial I've been curious about for a while. Transferring pictures to wood. This method for transferring is from theartofdoingstuff.com. It is only one of many ways to do it. I thought it looked the easiest. Check it out real quick, then come back. Cool, right? Well, I took the maiden voyage for you here...and maybe you're more like I am...a craft fumbler. Let me start with a little disclaimer: I am NOT trying to de-bunk someone's craft as a fake or to say something can't be done properly. The first tutorial I chose is awesome and she clearly knows what she's doing. That's not what this is about, though. I'll be honest. I'm a painter, not a crafter. My attempts at crafts are generally pretty lousy, but I still like to try! I don't like to try and try again, though...thus, the pretty lousy. So my judgement is based purely on this: Did it work for ME (a low-patience non-crafter) well enough on the first try that I'd at least give it another shot? My vote for this craft is: YES! (Kind of.) Here we go: STEP ONE: Gather your supplies. Here's what I used. *You could probably forgo the tube of white paint if you wanted to. ::snark:: The wood is just an 8x8 piece of plywood. The kind with the smooth paper-like overlay. Sorry I can't be more specific. I had Mr. Plywood cut me a whole sheet of it in various sizes one time, so that's what I'm using here. Oh, and you need a regular inkjet printer, too. STEP TWO: Cut a few sheets of wax paper the size of your printer paper. I did it like this. Snip snip. Easy so far. Cutting paper is fun. STEP THREE: Gather your wood and your graphic. I followed the directions from the tutorial and found this crown over at The Graphics Fairy. For my first try, I wanted to stick with the tutorial. In my 2nd attempt you'll see why that was a good idea. I also wanted an image I didn't have to 'flip' in a photo editor. STEP FOUR: Print. Okay. This is the step that's a total craft buzzkill for the low-patience non-crafter. This is our printer. The typical scanner/printer combo. The one from the tutorial was a top-feeder. Maybe that's easier. I can see how it might be. I jammed 3 sheets of wax paper right up in there before I got one through. I don't know what to tell you. Try, try again? Feed it as gently as you can. But don't push. And don't pull! And DON'T get your hopes up. I finally just got one to go somehow. And it wrinkled. But if you go into knowing it's going to wrinkle, you can just plan on a 'vintage' look. I'm curious enough to practice this step some more. I'll let you know. Or you let me know. Is there thicker wax paper? I shall see. NEXT: It's TRANSFER time, baby! I used a debit card for this. Pun only slightly intended. I don't know how long you've got to get the wax paper from printer to wood. I just did it immediately. And I didn't experiment with that. As the tutorial said, DON'T move the wax paper once you place it. It's slippery, though. So it's gonna win. What happened, you ask? WELL... Below you see my first attempt and my second attempt with the crown. The second attempt is actually pretty cool! It's crisp and clean! I'll probably paint over this crown. Next time, I can see doing it with one of my go-to subjects, though....like a robot or an owl or something. I call this portion of the experiment a complete success! I'm totally inspired by what I could do with practice and some planning. THEN THIS HAPPENED: Yeah. ::crickets:: I painted the same piece of wood white and printed a picture of one of my paintings to the wax paper for transfer. Yeah, probably don't do that next time. Maybe it was the white paint. Maybe it was the resolution of my photo. Maybe it was the multiple colors. I have no way of knowing on a first run. The colors in the photo above are accurate, though. It's not from 1970. And it was not a good time. Here is where I drop the mic. Because I'm a painter. Not a crafter. ....and scene. Do you have a DIY/tutorial you've been wanting someone else to try first?
Send it to me and maybe I will! amymclainart@gmail.com Comments are open. Happy New Year everyone! 2014 was quite a benchmark. I want to tell you all about it. In fact, I want to share so much with you that I don’t know where to start. And that keeps me from blogging. I feel like I've learned a ton but still have a ton to learn about building and maintaining a blog. So that keeps me from blogging! I want to come up with the perfect content for my target audience. Yep, it keeps me from blogging. I worry about what the people who AREN’T in my target audience will think. And that keeps me from blogging, too. I wonder if I care what they think? It keeps me from blogging. There are so many DIY’s and tutorials I want to try and share! And you know what? Ding! Ding! Ding! It keeps me from blogging. The desire to be great at this is my biggest obstacle. (LAME.) So here I am on the first Monday of 2015. Blogging. And that’s the goal for the month! Just to blog. Maybe if I use the word blog enough it will stick. Maybe it’s as simple as sharing these 5 Bad Ass Frogs over at Mental Floss. I mean, really. Check out the face on that second one, right? They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. Or something like that. Maybe it’s BS, but it sounds fair to me. In 2014 I tackled the painting aspect of this business. I went from not painting at all in many (many) years, to painting on a daily basis and loving it. Not just loving it, but craving it. I finished about 70 paintings in 2014….40 or so of which are hanging in public as I type this. That’s a REAL accomplishment and I’m too hard on myself sometimes. I know some of you are as well. Maybe I can help by just sharing my own experiences. Being a working artist is my primary focus, but this blog is one of my vehicles for getting it out there and making it happen. I aim to love it as much I love to make art. Or at least learn to be good at it. So instead of talking about all the huge things I’ve got coming up in 2015, I’ll just start throwing some assorted content at the wall this month to build the habit. We'll see what sticks! No big promises I can’t keep. I’ll simply be starting each day with the discipline of some stress-free, free-form content...BEFORE I sit down to paint. I have a ‘swipe file’ full of things to share. Things that inspire or make me laugh and might inspire you, too. Like this quote from this article over at creativesomething.net about simply not being afraid to produce a little crap: “It is very important to embrace failure and to do a lot of stuff ‒ as much stuff as possible ‒ with as little fear as possible. It’s much, much better to wind up with a lot of crap having tried it than to overthink in the beginning and not do it.” – Stefan Sagmeister And that is all. First blog of 2015. Complete. Now I can go to work on these guys: Got something to say? Comments are open!
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