My Use of Acrylic Transfers as an Alternative Collage-Making Method

Leonardo, Vol. 13, pp. 213- 215 Pergamon Press 1980. Printed in Great Britain MY USE OF ACRYLIC TRANSFERS AS AN ALTERNATIVE COLLAGE-MAKING METHOD Gillian HiII* 1. Since 1976, I have made a number of prints and drawings involving lithography and silkscreen, folded paper and collage [1). One-hundred percent rag paper (Rives BFK and Arches Cover) was used, and the collage pieces were glued in place with white glue (LePage's Bond Fast, Le Page's Ltd., Bramalea, Ontario, Canada). The papers were fairly acid-free and, consequently, resistant to yellowing and to disintegration. Furthermore, as paper constructions with graphic elements, the combination of materials was visually acceptable. Then, in 1979, I turned my attention to a problem that I had encountered earlier in making collages: how to incorporate both cut-out pieces of prints (lithographic and silkscreen) and acrylic paint on canvas. It seemed to me that many ofthe good visual qualities ofthe rag paper I used were lost when it was adhered to canvas and, therefore, that a completed collage surface made up of areas covered by acrylic paint and by paper was unsatisfactory . In an initial approach, I employed the cutout prints on rag paper as small hinged pieces, attached along one edge by sewing-machine stitching to an unstretched canvas coated with acrylic paint (Fig. 1). Shortly, after completing a number of such collages, I devised a method of using the same prints as transfers on an acrylic-paint film on canvas. The transfer areas and the painted areas when seen together had a harmonious quality that appealed to me, and, furthermore, I considered that the materials employed would be fairly resistant to deterioration. The possibilities offered by the process appear numerous . Other print materials (such as newspaper and magazine cuttings, which are not suitable as art materials because they yellow and disintegrate readily) can be used to make transfers; so can Xerox prints. Acrylic paint, wax crayon, oil pastels and pencil drawings on paper may also be used. But, in cases where the colorants (dyes and pigments) in the inks, paints and crayons are not lightfast, for example do not resist fading, good permanency ofthe acrylic transfers cannot be expected. Other artists have undoubtedly explored making transfers ofthis kind. In Leonardo, J. W. Davis has described a technique for transferring magazine illustrations and advertisements to polymer films on paper or on canvas [2]. There are also methods for transferring magazine images to epoxy resins [3]. W. Opalewski, on the other hand, suspended lithographic prints in polyester resin [4). In his procedure, however, the print paper was not removed, because it was rendered transparent.·Painter and printmaker, P.O. Box 2011, New Westminster, British Columbia V3L 5A3, Canada. (Received 30 June 1979) 213 Fig. I 'We Are Here' col/age, mixed media (acrylic paint, lithocollage , scraps of paper with typing, pencil, cotton thread) on coloured canvas with vinyl sheeting, 100 x 50cm, 1979. 2. The procedure for making an acrylic transfer is similar to that used for making solvent transfers [2; 3, p. 360; 5). In both methods, the colorant is transferred from the original surface to another surface with the image reversed . However, instead of loosening the ink colorants by rubbing solvent into the back of a print and transferring them from the face ofthe print to another surface (the solvent transfer procedure), the colorants are transferred by painting a wet acrylic (water-base) paint layer on the print, and, after the paint is dry, the paper of the print is 214 Gillian Hill removed. In other words, the original paper support for the image is replaced by an acrylic paint layer. The paint layer may be employed in two ways. In the first procedure, it is isolated as a thin sheet of dried paint bearing the image that, like a collage piece, may be affixed to a surface with the use either of acrylic medium or of acrylic paint as adhesive. In the second procedure, the paint layer on the face ofthe print, before it is dried, is put into full contact with a surface (paper or canvas, for example) to which it adheres and the print paper is removed later. An important...