Image Transfer Technique with Schmincke Transparent Primer

You will need:
• Schmincke Transparent Primer
• Glossy magazine pages or laser prints
• Painting ground: pre-primed canvas or paper for acrylic or watercolour painting
•A selection of Aero Color Professional Finest Acrylic Ink liquid acrylic colours
• Aero Color Professional Liner (empty marker pen)
• Soft flat brushes, palette, jar with water, cloth or tissue, spray bottle with water

Step 1
Prepare your printed matter to transfer.
Before starting, plan your images taking into account that everything will be reversed. If your images include text you will want to print them as mirror images if you wish it to read correctly afterwards.
Cut out your printed matter from magazines or laser prints and work out your composition of paper pieces in advance on your working table.

Step 2
Apply the Schmincke Transparent Primer onto your canvas or paper painting surface with a wide flat brush.

Step 3
Move your arrangement of paper pieces to the surface of your painting turning them to face ink downwards. Then press them into the primer and rub them down well with your fingers. Let the primer dry for a few minutes, on canvas it will be a little bit longer than on paper.

Step 4
Raise the paper cuttings carefully on one end to see if the transfer of the printed colour layer has occurred.

Step 5
If the transfer has happened peel off all the paper pieces from the canvas. If the transfer hasn’t happened yet, wait a few more minutes and check again.

Step 6
After you have peeled off all the paper, any remaining paper stuck to the surface can be rubbed off carefully with your fingers. The result is a fragmented, imperfect, mirror image transfer of the ink from the paper to the canvas.

Step 7
Before starting to paint on top of your print transfer be sure that the Schmincke Transparent Primer is absolutely dry.
The ability of the Aero Color Professional Finest Acrylic Ink to act as an acrylic glaze makes it a good choice for painting over your print transfer as the printed fragments shine through the transparent colour layers. Choose your colours and thin them with a little water on a palette. Apply the normal liquid colours and the more thinned colours with soft, flat brushes of different sizes, alternating. If you wish to avoid these glazes flowing into each other, let the colours dry in between layers before applying the next colours.

These colour glazes will enliven the painting, but consider leaving some parts of your painting unpainted. White areas can create a nice contrast and give a certain airiness. If the colour effect is too intense, or you have obscured the printed matter too much you can remove wet paint with a cloth or tissue.

Another effect can be achieved by spraying some water into the wet paint to cause the colour to flow or to create colour spots.

Step 8
Fill the Aero Color Professional Liner empty marker pen with Aero Color Finest Acrylic Ink liquid acrylic in a colour you’d like to draw on top of the paint with. Using the Aero Color Liners you can draw outlines and enhance parts of your print transfer.

The liners also work well for doing complete drawings on top of your painting.

The final painting.