Transfers Using Liquid Sculpey

I took my first stab at this. The results were…interesting. Not great, but not all that bad.

Since I have an inkjet printer, I used a variation of the T shirt transfer paper method. I had a photocopy from a catalog, of a painting. Scaled it to fit the lid of a cheapie wooden box from Michael’s–about 9×7 inches. For a first effort, that was a bit large. By the time I managed to paint the entire image with the Liquid, the ink on the transfer paper was already beginning to go into solution. Learned that the hard way when I scraped a 1/2 inch long bit off the edge with the chopstick I was using to hold it in place. That was all right, since the over all effect was going to be on the rough side.

I skipped the heat gun and baked the whole thing in the oven, on a cheap cookie sheet. A little soaking, and the paper came right off.

Next time: I will make sure my Sculpy is thinner before I begin. I’ll brush it on instead of pouring it and then trying to smooth it out. And it would be better to work by sections. Leave a “handle” when cutting out the image. Maybe practice with a smaller image a couple of times before anything I want to look really nice.

	Heat Gun Method: Spread a thin, even coat of Translucent Liquid Sculpey on the surface of your toner transfer image. The uncured clay will appear milky white and shiny.
	Use your heat gun to carefully set the clay. Move the tip of the heat gun evenly over the surface of the clay so it does not burn in spots.
	The clay will become translucent and matte when it cures.
	With a clay blade or your fingernail, peel the clay away from the paper while the clay is still warm. You will now have a paper thin transfer.
	If you use the side of the clay that lifted the image off of the paper, your image will be reversed. It is a good idea to bake the transfer on a flat tray (if you are not applying it to clay that will be baked again) for 10 minutes to make sure the liquid clay is completely cured.
	Color Transfers with Fabric Transfer Paper Color images printed from your computer inkjet printer onto fabric transfer paper can be easily made into thin liquid clay transfers. Once you have printed the image onto the fabric transfer paper (used for transferring images onto t-shirts and fabric), just follow the directions for the heat gun transfer method. Once the Liquid Sculpey is cured, the clay will peel easily from the paper. This way, you can quickly turn your own digital color images into paper-thin clay transfers.