ATC Water Transfer Technique: ATC Workshop Book Se

WOOPIEEEEE! I purchased this book last month either at Joann's or Michaels just because I feel in love with the tecniques. I've seen your swaps before based on tecniqes in this book and was not able to join. I'm so excited my hubby thinks I'm nuts. WOOPIEEE!

Man, wish that book was available here in Australia! I know, I know,I could get it on amazon IF I had a credit card ;)

how many more of these will you host? i dont have the book but it sounds fun. if this is going to go on or be repeated i may purchase the book next month.

Hi everyone, I have already hosted 10 of them. I was trying to host 2 per month up until the Christmas holiday season when I took a break. I have been very pleased with these swaps because due to the high rating minimum's we have had no flakers. Also the quality has been high on these. I give plenty of lead time to do the work since we're all learning and trying these techniques often for the first time---so it takes longer to make the ATCs and to make some that are 'swap worthy' if you know what I mean.

I am just now getting back into swapping after the New Year holiday, me being away to visit a relative and then dealing with winter sickness. I hope to list a 2nd swap in the next week or so. After that I plan to hopefully run 2 swaps per month again based on techniques in this series.

If you check my profile you will see a comment in the right sidebar that lists the ones we finished. I want to do more new ones before I repeat the other techniques, if I even do that.

I have found the book very much worth the money. I've learned some new techniques. And the examples of the finished cards have been inspirational and given me even more ideas.

Have fun everyone!!

I have been in several of these and really enjoyed actually working from the book and the results and inspiration from the new techniques. Great series.

This book is available through Amazon's used book section for under $6. Looking forward to trying the techniques - they looks useful for many applications. THX

Man, I almost missed this one. Hey Christine, welcome back. I am so glad you've started these up again. I just love that book.

I've just had a try at this technique and found I got the best results when the photo paper was dry, leave to stand a few minutes after taking it off the printer, and the watercolour paper was very wet. I also used absorbent craft paper (a bit like thin sugar paper) which worked well but took longer to dry when printed. Margot.

Thanks for the tips Margot. I unexpectedly went out of town x8 days so now I am going to be pushing a deadline I guess. When working with a new technique I like to give myself more room. Oh well!!

I've done other transfers but not water.

Partners have been assigned. Have fun everyone.

Please let me know if your partner flakes on you.

This swap had a 4.8 minimum rating and everyone had that so no one was banned.

Have a great day everyone!

I've had some issues with this technique and wonder if anyone can offer suggestions re. amount of wetness (spray vs. soak) and what paper works the best? Mine keep sticking together and oftern are impossible to pull away. I've used drawing paper, cotton printer's paper, and watercolor paper -- each progressively muckier. (I don't have the book at my finger tips, so I may be missing a major detail.)

Laurie55 and Redwing480, your cards are in the post from UK.

Mine are not working either. Yikes. This is very frustrating. Ideas, anyone?

I'm soaking the watercolor paper heavily, using a brayer and even tried using the back of a spoon.

I also tried as explained in BB book with lightweight photo paper but didn't work, finally decided to print with a ink-jet printer on greaseproof paper and the results are not too bad (don't apply too much water on the watercolor paper)

I am going to edit this swap to say if a person has tried several times to use the water technique and it is failing that they can substitute any other transfer technique and write a note to the person they are sending to, explaining how the water transfer did not work after several attempts.

I don't want those who are not faring well with this technique to be forced to flake on their partners.

I have tried this over and over with all different ways and cannot get this to work. This is so frustrating.

I will send an email to everyone in a few minutes.

I just received this by email from Desiree...

Hi Christine, transfers are tricky....grrrrr. I've been playing with them for sometime on polymer clay and it's pretty hit or miss. I don't know if this will help or not, but can your forward this on to the group. These are just suggestions. I can sit there and transfer one image and then next one gives me nightmares.

1. Don't use a very absorbent watercolor paper. I used the Strathmore brand: http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayProductPage?productNum=fa0255 When I went to the art store and got a pretty expensive sheet of cold press 300lb paper and tried the transfers, the watercolor paper just stuck to the photo.

2. Don't use a freshly printed image. I let my photo dry for at least 2 hours before using.

3. Saturate the paper. But be careful not to let the photo slide when you are placing it on the paper. You may see color bleeding from under the photo, but this is a good thing that means the ink is actually transferring. Also when you begin to remove the photo, if you notice that it hasn't transfered as much as you like, use a paintbrush to add more water.

4. Also try a gift or credit card to burning instead of the roller. Sometimes this helps.

Again, this is not guaranteed, but between some cursing and throwing hands up in frustration, I managed to get some photos transfered.

Note: Christine, I don't know how this will be looked at since the technique says to use watercolor paper, but transferring to manila folders is a heck of a lot easier. I found a site on-line when I was having problems and almost every time my manila folder transfers worked. If you are agreeable to altering the instructions slightly, then maybe folks can use that instead.

I just remembered one other thing. Paper formulations may have changed since this book was written.

There was a big discussion about this on Polymer Clay Central's forums. A lot of the folks used a specific brand of inkjet paper to do the transfers. The vendor changed their formulation and all of a sudden everyone was struggling to do transfers. They had to pretty much tweak their techniques to work with the new papers.

I wonder is that is what has happened with this technique. Maybe the inkjet photo papers have changed. I have been using Kodak and HP premium photo paper. For me the Kodak seems to release the ink better than the HP, but that maybe because the Kodak paper is older. I bought lots of packages of it a couple of years ago when an office supply store went out of business.

I used Strathmore 140lb. cold press watercolor paper and Southworth(Eaton) glossy photo inkjet paper.

I wet the paper by holding it under a running faucet for about 10 seconds each side. I then put the print and went over it with the brayer about 5-6 times and then seperated . I used my prints within 15-20 minutes of printing them.

Photos were harder to work with and the book only said images so I tried some other things. The easiest to work with were prints of graphic images with clear lines or simple images with bold lines.

This was a challenging technique that I ended up liking and plan to explore further.

LOL! Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one still stuck on conquering this technique.

I actually stopped by Walmart last night and picked up two other brands of watercolor pads. One was Mead's Watercolor Pad. It says heavyweight, but I can tell ya, there ain't nothing heavy about this paper. OMG....the transfer I just did is clear as a bell. {Smack self on forehead} why didn't I try this one before.

Anyone interested in another on of the swaps a couple of months from now after we've had some more trial and error time.

I'd be willing to give it another go round.