This was a fun sketch from a lovely reference. I used one of my new Blackwing 602 pencils, which I am developing a crush on, and my chunky Pitt Graphite Crayon, and a tortillon for blending.
Later on I was musing about things, in particular revisiting thoughts about using my own photographs either as gel print image transfers, or just using them in mixed media as they are. Just musing the idea, and thinking about various techniques and ideas.
One thing I have played around with going back years is transparencies. I love printing on tissue paper, or doing gel prints on tissue paper, and using those in collage. I usually get a fairly good translucent effect, but you can usually still see the tissue paper, which is fine.
That’s what happens when you use matt medium, but I learned that using gloss medium and wetting the tissue paper increases the transparency. I’ve been playing around with that, and getting some good results.
This process popped into my head while I was musing about image transfers, and an idea came together, and I immediately started the experiment, despite the fact the dinner table was already being set.
I printed off the sketch above on tissue paper and then wet it before placing it on a mixed media page in one of my sketchbooks. The first thing to note is that I didn’t use wet-strength tissue paper, so it was very fragile, which is fine because this was just a quick experiment.
The print was also quite sizeable, which made it a bit more challenging to get it on the page without wrinkles. So there are wrinkles, and a couple of spots where the tissue developed holes, but overall the experiment worked well enough to give me a rabbit hole to head off into.
I’m going to have so much fun with this!
Til the morn,
Suzanne
444/500
Thrummie Bizzum 
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