Odell Filling Station

I'm having trouble getting a good photo of this one because of the reds and oranges.... fun colors, but apparently not so easy to photograph! I used my drawing of the Odell Station and this time did an image transfer using acrylic medium. This one also has some tissue paper and the Route 66 sign stamp I carved.

I'm trying to pack to spend a few days at the lake, and I'm ending up with more art supplies than clothes. That's OK....lots of room in the trunk...if only my car would get back from the shop!

Odell, IL along Route 66

I used one of the boards I prepped in this post to try out the packing tape transfers using my drawing of the filling station in Odell, IL on Route 66. I like how it turned out a crisp, crisp image, but I'm going to have to get used to the idea that the edges of the tape do show when the light hits it just right. Right now I'm trying out a different transfer method that would not have the tape layer. I am very pleased with the background here...it's several layers of acrylic paint and spray ink.



I stamped and collaged a bit around the edges using vintage items from the nearby area, and also dictionary pages with travel themed words.

 Kind of fun to work on something that can hang on the wall instead of live inside a book!

How to Make a Packing Tape Image Transfer

I've been having fun making these image transfers....so easy and so fast! I love art techniques that are fast...I'm not the most patient artist. The transfer above is layered over some of my handwriting, so you can see how the image is now transparent and your background will peek through. This technique works using photocopies, magazine images and text, newspapers...just about anything printed on paper. Just remember, those images are owned by whoever created them so keep that in mind when you are creating...use them in ways that don't violate anyone's copyrights. The best thing is that you can use your own artwork and photos and make photocopies, like I did in a journal page in a previous post. You know you own your own stuff, and can use it however you please!

My sister tried making some last night, so I took pictures to share with you:

You'll need some clear packing tape, a baking dish of water, a bone folder or spoon or something to burnish the image, scissors, and some magazines or photocopies to use for your transfers. Ink jet prints smear if you get them wet, so I think you need toner based copies.

Put the packing tape over your image...carefully...try to avoid wrinkles.

Cut out the tape covered image, cutting away any unwanted background.

Burnish the tape nice and tight to the image.

Then put your image in the pan of water to soak. Go work on taping up some more images, or eat some cookies...let it soak a bit so that the paper on the back gets nice and soft.

When the paper is soft, start rubbing the paper off the back. You will see that the inks are now on the tape, and you can just rub all the paper away.

Here she is part way done...keep rubbing until there's no paper left.

Your image will still be on the tape, and it will be transparent. You can glue it down with acrylic medium, attach it with brads, or whatever you dream up, and your background will show through.

Here are a few that we did last night. You can see on the bottom one that I had to use two pieces of tape to cover the image. That's ok, just overlap them a little so it all holds together.

Odell Gas Station on Route 66

This is the Standard Oil Gas Station in Odell. It's just about 10 minutes north of Old City Hall Shoppes on Route 66. It's beautifully restored, and if you get a chance you should pull up and have a picture taken of you and your car!

I'm trying to learn to make decent image transfers so I can get that transparent look while still using my drawings. This one is a packing tape transfer. It turned out pretty good.  At certain angles, you can still see the edges of the packing tape, and I'm not crazy about that, so I have a couple other methods I'm trying also.

Here's a picture of that gas station back in the day: