A few year ago I started experimenting with image transfer. It's like printing something on white paper and then transferring only the black parts onto another piece of paper, wood... whatever you choose.

In order to do that, you'd need some transfer medium. I use the CHALKY-CHIC:

image transfer medium

I love the results. It gets a grungy look because in order to transfer the image, you have to scratch out the white (useless) parts of the print and you make mistakes.

That leads to some scratches on the black parts as well. See for yourself:

The tricky part is that, in order to transfer the image, you have to mirror it before printing the source. A part I often forget and that gets me into printing a lot of useless pages 😀

What I mean is that in order to get this, for example:

You have to prepare the file you're gonna print on paper like that:

Image transfer - Aah, it's a fun thing to do. It gives a unique and vintage feeling. Especially if you use vintage paper for the purpose... The results are astonishing.

If you'd like to see more experiments with this technique, please go here for a few more picturesque examples.

Oh... and one more thing - in order to transfer the image properly, you'll have to of course calculate the proper dimension when printing on an A4/Letter format - depending on your surface. If you're gonna print on something bigger, I hope you have such a printer or else, you'll have to use a print-house's services. But whatever the case or your needs - it's definitely worth the fun. I recommend it!

As a conclusion, I'm pretty happy with my self-made Behemoth poster (it's one of my favorite metal bands):

image transfer behemoth poster

The most beautiful thing about image transfer is that you CAN'T CONTROL every pixel. Anything human-made nowadays brings some aesthetics that can't be be beaten by the impotency of the digital perfectionism.

Julian


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