Just Gelling

My poor finger tips are rubbed completely raw and I probably don’t have any finger prints left! The Gel Medium Transfer worked fine on the steel after a couple of test prints but the

rubbing became a bit tedious. I tried to use some overhead transparency film onto the Gel Medium as in the video but the image didn’t transfer at all. Maybe my film was old? It even rinsed clean! I did like the effect of one of my powerline images on the film though…that can be another project in the near future. There are several methods you can use in transferring images. For the Gel Medium Transfer process I did, I painted a thick coat of Golden’s Gel Medium onto the steel and placed a fresh, full color laser print image down

onto the gel. the images I used were both digital images I have taken myself of Ravens and Nature as well as a few Royalty-free images I have on CD's. I usually digitally enhance the images in Photoshop to bump up the saturation and sharpen the overall photo for better contrast. Next, I Burnished the paper smooth to remove any air bubbles, making sure that the laser image was in full contact with the gel and steel substraight. After about 2-3 hours of drying time, I moistened the paper and began to rub the paper off of the now “acrylic” image. I also needed to apply a clear coat of spray enamel to further enhance the images. To give the wall sculptures a more artful look, I hammered words onto pieces of copper and cold riveted the copper to the steel. I used a set of leather punch alphabet tools and my anvil to hammer the words. Overall I like the effect but want to experiment further with the idea of transferring a clearer, graphic image onto steel. And I have not given up on finding a straight

pass through ink jet printer. There were a couple of used units on Amazon but I’m leary of buying any used computer equipment let alone over the internet. We’ll see, I still have a whole roll of aluminum flashing just waiting for that art making project!