Black-Line Transfers

There are probably hundreds of techniques in polymer I haven't tried yet, and I'm sure more are being explored and developed every day on the worktables of polymer artists. I realized the other day that one technique I haven't used is black-line transfers.  Actually, I've done very little with transfers at all, and decided to give black-line a try.

I made a few bracelets... actually, I'm on a roll, and can't seem to leave this particular project alone.

For materials I'm using brass channeled cuff and bangle forms. The base clay is translucent and I've mixed in sheets of metal leaf.  In some cases, I also added just a bit of sold clay to color things slightly.  You don't need much color at all to affect translucent.  I plan to try using alcohol inks, too, since they'll create a brighter color without affecting the translucency as much as opaque clay does.  The black-line designs are from copyright free publications designed to be used in projects.

After the pieces are baked, I've added a light coating of PYM  II.  Since these pieces will be on the wrist and will probably get a good amount of handling, I wanted to protect both the design and the metal leaf in the base.

Pictured here are some of the first cuffs I made.  I'll try to get back here with some other examples soon.

I'm back - here are some bangles made with the same technique.  Less design, but still quite pretty.  The bolder design on the aqua seems to show up well in this narrower format.