During any artists art career, one is always opened up to different mediums to work with. A new medium introduced to me recently is a gel medium, used to transfer prints on to a rough surface. The task was to create a hybrid gel transfer piece on an object of my own choice that uses digital photography and imagery created by me. To create this hybrid gel transfer piece, one selects a good quality image, reverses it, enhances the levels and values on the photograph, making it print darker, prints the image of from a printer, usually black and white for it to be best quality, and is applied face down onto a rough surface. By applying gel onto the surface of the wood (before the image is placed), and allowing it to dry for a 24 hour period, one uses water to disintegrate the paper away, revealing an inked image onto the surface.
Deciding on an image was very difficult, as it needed to be a photograph that was very well done. I did, however, remember my photography portfolio, and how the angel image I took, was very good quality with an interesting subject matter. The photograph which I used is an angel that is looking down. The image itself is focused on her upper half, capturing her look and definition and detailing in her face, mood and over all look. (This image can be found in my Photography Portfolio, which can be found through the “Media Arts” page, with the link to “Photography Portfolio”), The image is blown up and zoomed in to focus the angel figure, and is off centered. By placing the figure on the right side of the canvas, it allows it to follow the compositional technique of grid of thirds; by doing this, it adds to the visual appeal and enhances its compositional difficulty and technique. The image itself was placed onto a wooden canvas with the size 12″ x 12″. I applied more gel in certain spots; by doing this, is created bumps and hills in the picture during its drying period. This create lines across the picture, adding texture and depth to it. By applying less gel, it allowed less of the image to transfer on to the wooden canvas, creating a weathered, old and vintage look.
Size: 12″ x 12″
Well deciding on the photograph to be used for the piece above, I often thought about doing an animal that I truly love, a thing in all its glory and magnificence that can be seen in my eyes; a cow, and in this case, four. For some unknown reason to me, cows have become my favourite animal, and I decided that this would be a good opportunity to make a project that is for me, that I will enjoy more then anyone else. Well recently visiting a family farm, I happen to capture the beastly beauties roaming close to the fence. I do, and forever will be, in love with cows; and at this moment, the only instinct I had was to capture as many pictures of them as possible. The picture that I ended up using has four cows in it, all starring directly at me and the camera. For this image, I chose to gel transfer it onto a solid piece of wood, one of which that had an older, worn out look to it. I felt that this particular piece of wood helped enhance the old time barn and country feel. One step that is curtail in gel transferring is that before you print the image, one needs to make sure you change the levels and darken your colours extremely, as once your transfer it, it always turns out lighter. Art is always about trail an error, and this piece followed that. I discovered that before the image was printing, all four cows were visible, but after it transferred however, only two were clearly visible, and the nose of one can be seen if the picture is closely looked at. For this transfer, unlike the first one, i tried to maintain an even coat of gel across the entire wooden surface, to not loose, cut off or ruin any of the detailing in the cows, habitat/surroundings and background, as well as the cows themselves. Overall I am very happy with the way this piece turned out, as the two main cows that are visible, are the main two cows that I wanted to turn out.
Size: 5.5″ x 5.5″
Melissa Reid: Art Portfolio Blog 