The popularity of the transfer idea just amazes me. It used to be that transfers were for t-shirts and irons. And a few other things.

 

In the dinosaur age of the graphic design business, rub-off lettering was life blood. There were no computers and no other way to indicate decorative headline type on a proof. Now, rub-offs are a “new” art supply in the scrapbooking world. But they still qualify as transfers, old and new.

Transferring is a broad subject when you think about it. Monotypes are transfers and so are gelatin prints. Each produces one print from artwork created on a different surface.

 

I remember years ago, on a tour of a big corporate art studio in Phoenix, watching a transfer of a laser toner print being done with lacquer thinner. Everybody ooohed and aaahed and choked - on fumes.

 

And toner based copies were the only transferable copies for a long time - with acetone and even gin serving as the transfer medium.

 

Then came the discovery of inkjet transfers using acrylic gel mediums (with which I *always* made a huge mess) and a huge internet transfer community sprung into being.

 

And then one day a few years ago, a customer emailed me to say that inkjet prints on Sheer Heaven will transfer with rubbing alcohol to porous papers. I spread the word and Sheer Heaven took off in a whole new direction. Now, Sheer Heaven is commonly referred to as “transfer” paper instead of the multi-faceted art surface that it is.

 

At this stage of the game, the fun is to see how many other things besides inkjet prints will transfer with this process. We have already explored the transfer of ink drawings done with Pitt pens - both black and white and color. See those videos here:

 

 

Sharpies work too.

 

But shading and subtle color variations are difficult to accomplish with Pitt pens or Sharpies, so I decided to experiment with watercolor pencils which are a favorite daily medium for me.

Drawing done with Caran d’Ache watercolor pencils on Sheer Heaven and transferred to Moleskine.

Transfer Test Results

All my tests were done by drawing a little flower type doodad on Sheer Heaven and transferring using alcohol.

 

First I tried regular (non water soluble) Prismacolor pencils. The first transfer left a lot of ink on the SH (top right) so I re-wet with alcohol, lined it up and transferred again (top left). This put down more color, but blurred a little and still did not give a sharp or vivid transfer.

 

Then I tried my favorite Caran d’ache Supracolor watercolor pencils and did not blend the color with my waterbrush. The transfer was perfect (see sample on the left and at the top of this post).

 

So I tried again, blending the color with the waterbrush and allowing the drawing to dry before transfer. But that transfer did not not turn out well, as you can see.

Being a “collector” of watercolor pencils gave me the opportunity to try some other brands (I only tested the dry unblended version of the drawing). Results are shown above and below.

The Albrecht Durer did the best of these four brands, but there was too much smearing on the other three.

 

Caran d’ache was still the champ for transfer to paper.

Why would you want to transfer a colored pencil drawing to paper if you could just draw on the paper instead?

This is a good question.

 

One answer is that you can blend colored pencil (dry) much better on Sheer Heaven than you can on a smooth paper which has no tooth. In fact, one of the most popular fine art uses for Sheer Heaven is colored pencil work because the tooth never flattens - allowing an infinite number of layers and tremendous brilliance.

 

So a much more detailed drawing could be transferred to your art journal than you could ever do directly on the journal page.

 

Also, if your layout of a journal spread or book page were still in the planning stages, you could do the drawings on Sheer Heaven and then be able to transfer them anywhere in the layout when you finally figured it out. You could even play with the layout first by just laying the drawings in place.

 

And a third reason is that you can trace the drawing on Sheer Heaven because you can see through it. Tracing is a good way to duplicate a drawing you have done somewhere else, or clip art, etc.

 

So if these ideas appeal to you, Caran d’ache Supracolor Soft is the pencil you want to have.

But then we thought about the possibilities of transferring colored pencil drawings to fabric. . .

You don’t have the option of drawing/painting with colored pencil on fabric. You are mostly confined to paints, dyes, and fabric markers - and the results can be hard to predict.

 

A finished colored pencil drawing, on the other hand would be totally predictable (are you listening, quilters and fabric workers?)

 

But the Caran d’ache brand did not win the fabric contest. So if fabric transfers are your desire,

 

Stay tuned . . . .