I had 5 images which I had photocopied onto heat transfer paper. I put several images onto one piece as they were samples I didn't want to use large a4 images.
Image 1 I decided to heat transfer onto hessian fabric as the image is of dried, cracked soil - nature - so I wanted to try the hessian fabric. Given the few colours in the original photograph, it's not that surprising that the heat transfer onto hessian was feint. I initially it was not usable, but I am going to stitch into it and see what effect it has.
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| Image 1 |
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| Image 2 |
Image 2 - this photograph is of a house in Borth and I decided to heat transfer onto a brown check fabric as I felt the check pattern against the image of the house might blend well. Unfortunately, the image again came out quite feint, almost as if the heat transfer press wasn't hot enough but I know it was. 
Image 3 of a view through the caravan window again didn't come out very well. The fabric used this time was bobbly silk. After I'd done, I reviewed the results with Sue and she advised yes, bobbly silk doesn't work very well, but I didn't think to ask before hand and to be fair, it's good for me to test them.  |
| Image 4 |
Image 5 - the best result of all !. Heat transferred onto calico - good clean lightweight calico ! The image of a pig has good colour, different shades of pink and the straw in the background can be seen on the transferred image. I had an idea in my head of putting this fabric onto a small block of wood. Infact my idea was to have the front and rear of a pig on blocks of wood. Now I have had these samples on my fireplace for a week and I like the size of the wood and the fact that it stands up solidly so I'm wondering would I like it as much as the images I've done straight onto wood as opposed to fabric glued onto the wood. Now I didn't cut the fabric to fit the block but this would've been a better idea. Instead I've put two pieces of fabric together, glued, just to see the effect. I like the fabric idea because I could add more than one image and I could even add my details on there somewhere i.e. underneath. I also like the fact that the size of wood and thickness means they can be stacked so I could do grown up ones and children's ones. Again I need to speak to Emma and fellow students about these and get some feedback. And also friends as they give me honest opinions when I ask would you buy one of these?.
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| Image 5 |
I did try a heat transfer in a red silk fabric - red wine red but the pink of the pig (not surprisingly) didn't show very well at all). I do like this fabric though and I have a variety of colours which I got from a curtain sample book.
Image 6 - again of a pig - this was a great happy find because the fabric I used - like a thick silky fabric with circular stitching on it - came out great when I heat transferred the image on - it adds a texture to the finished result. It's not just a plain flat picture. What it gave me the idea for is to get
stitch on the machine random patterns onto some silk and I will try calico, and then try heat transferring again. Shown below is the red silk with pig transferred onto it the pig's outline is barely visible
Reflection ....... what went well - I learnt what fabrics aren't good to heat transfer on. Calico is ideal. I discovered that a raised pattern on a fabric gives an interesting effect. The small blocks of wood with fabric images on. The stacking of them is a good idea and if I get the images right they could be used for the arts market. What didn't go so well..... I rushed it (again). I just wanted results hence I forgot to mirror image my photographs when photocopying - now it wasn't necessary because there was no text, but I wanted my photographs the way they had been shot, not reversed. When using the heat transfer press, I need to make sure the temperature goes up to 200+ and not the recommended 182?? I have found in the past that my heat transferring on this new machine haven't gone well and each time I did blame it on my fabric but I feel that it's a bit of both, some fabrics aren't as good as others and it does work better at 200+.
Since doing these samples, I have received a book from Staffs uni, Dawn Dupree, Heat Transfer Techniques, who is a member of the 62 Group. Dawn's book shows how to heat transfer onto felt amongst other things. She also gives examples of heat transfer using flock, foils, photos and dyes. The books gives techniques using not just a heat press, but an iron.
I can see from my samples above and the book by Dawn, that I'm thinking very small. For example, one piece of work by Shelly Goldsmith is a photo transferred onto a christening dress shown below..
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| Shelly Goldsmith, 2003 (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/interview-shelly-goldsmith-textiles-artist/)
Similarly, a scanned drawing by Heather Belcher was put onto heat transfer paper an then printed onto handmade felt as shown below (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/45387908717402584/).
So what can I do differently?
Think about what I want to achieve with the transfer
How does the fabric i'm using relate to that original image - what will it say about the end product - i.e. the dry mud flats image 1 above - does the hessian give the impression of dry, cracked soil? What could I have used instead? Something crumpled?
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