Thank you I learn so much from you. Fun video's that I didn't have to pay $175.00 to watch. Yep that the price I've paid an art teacher for basically the same thing. Keep on posting video's and I'll keep on watching. Kudos!
With burnishing your copies onto wax its teally helpful to lay a piece of wax paper (the kind from the grocery store) over your copy before you start burnishing with your spoon. It wont stick to the wax and it helps towards the copies edges so they dont wrinkle or tear if you burnish vigorously. Also you can transfer the toner image from a laser printer without having to remove the paper. This us great for adding type where you dont want paper showing. You use parchment paper (grocery story) and cut it to 8 5 x 11 and tape the top edge to a sheet of copy paper so it can be carried through the printer easily. Then you lay the parchment paper with the dry toner image face down on your wax surface and burnish with your spoon. You can see th image being transferred off the parchment paper....however you can turn a torch or heat gun onto it once its been transferred. It will blow apart. What works best is to sit the board in direct hot sun until the wax softens and penetrates through the toner. In a hot sun it takes about 1/2 hour of sitting in the sun for the toner to fuse to the wax surface.
A comment from someone who has done it different ways. It's impossible to get the paper off completely. There is always a haze. Instead of printing on paper print on a sheet protector sleeve. Cut off the hole section so it will go through the printer. When you print onto it (or an overhead transparent acrylic sheet), then you can simply rub the image onto the medium. Use an acrylic medium. Let it dry. Then place the sheet over it - toner side down - and rub with a burnishing tool (spoon, or whatever). The image will directly transfer. Just a thought. I've tried it the paper way and it doesn't look good when it's done, plus it takes a lot of work for a substandard result. I've done it with encaustic and it works great, but it'll also work with acrylic gel medium. The best way to get a photograph or image into encaustic is to print the image (with ink or laser) onto a sheet of rice paper. Then just embed it. The wax will saturate through the paper and the paper will disappear.
For anyone watching from the UK, when she says toner-based copies, she means laser printed, as opposed to inkjet printed. Inkjet runs when you get it wet. Laser won't. :o)
I am confused from get-go. What wax?. I have primed (Gesso Birch-wood) yet no printing equipment . Think I am way behind in this method of image transfer or any type of it.
thank you, very coo, works with color and canvas and excellent tool for young students as well as adults. this would be an excellent lesson for special ed also. any special ed teacher would use this technique, I taught art in NYC board of ed. Kids and adults love the look of a printed item.
So when you first started, did you put a layer of wax on the surface first? I have the "encaustic board" with the medium on them, but nothing is burnishing.
Ditto your question, Tammy. I was wondering the same thing. I've used this process with acrylics, and it works fine, but I'd like to know what Sharon has 'primed' the base with. If you find out (outside of RU-vid), kindly throw me a note! Thanks!
I know you wrote this question 3 years ago and you probably got it figured out by now LOL. I was wondering the very same thing and because these are just snippets from a DVD she made I think it was left out. So in reading the comments to see if this question of mine was answered I came upon the same one from others and yourself. I noticed that she responded 2 years ago with an answer to your question I copied it and am pasting it for you below; A "primed" surface in encaustic painting means putting a layer of encaustic medium on the surface and fusing it by heating with a heat gun. This is repeated in order to have a total of three layers. This then is a properly "primed" surface to start encaustic painting or doing image transfers.
