I made some images using image transfers.  The only method I tried was the Packaging Tape method, because it was the quickest and I didn’t have much time.  I had the idea to make a picture about the launch of Jeff Bezos’ private spaceship, the New Shepard.  We talked about it at the beginning of class, and I was thinking about the current billionaires’ space race in the context of the enormous challenges that are facing humanity, most of all from the climate crisis and the immense inequality which has produced the billionaires.  I read about the shape of the rocket in a satyrical piece in the Guardian, talking about why it was shaped like a phallus.  I thought of all the people who have made the billionaires so rich, and how they seem to be planning to leave us behind.  So I had the idea of making an image where people are in the wake of the rocket.  I was imagining using images from old National Geographics, of people from all countries, of all races and walks of life.  I ended up photographing my own family for the images, and making the pictures non-specific, which worked better for me.  The image below of the rocket is a first draft with some problems, glued together using the gel medium.  After that, I printed three of the portraits I did of my family, and layered them onto paintings by Fionnuala and Declan.  Images are below, and then an explanation of the process and some of the difficulties:

The biggest difficulty I encountered with this process was that only certain inks will work, as we discussed in class.  As I said above, I was using the packaging tape method, with Scotch Heavy Duty Packaging Tape.  I tried prints from my office printer, and the paper would separate from the tape after only a few seconds in the water, with only a small amount of ink transferred.  I tried some Origami paper, and that worked a little better but it was not a useful pattern.   late 80s National Geographics images sort of transferred, but mostly the black ink and the paper was very hard to scrape off.   I bought a few newspapers but there were no interesting images and when I tried one from the New York Times of fireworks at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, it didn’t work well at all.

I was sort of at my wits’s end, thinking that I wasn’t going to be able to make transfers at all.  I had made my family pose on Saturday morning for pictures of their faces, but I didn’t know how I would print them in a medium that would work for the transfer.

Julie was going out to Trader Joe’s to do the week’s shopping, and she told me to put the images on a thum drive and she would stop at Staples and see if they were printing with dry toner.  She took them and brought back prints.  It turns out that all of their copy machines use dry toner.  Success!  We did a test and it worked like a charm.  Especially dark tones and saturated colors transfer very well to the tape.  So I taped the prints and soaked them and made the images above.   As I said, I think that the rocker picture is a first draft–I like how the transfers look but the faces are surrounded by rectangular grey tone.  I think if they took more the shape of the rocket’s fire plume it would be better.  But I am very happy with the three portraits.  I think that they have a melancholy feel, like the faces are submerged in time.

Below are some images of the process: