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Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Letter a Week (ALaW) 11

Another week, another experiment. When visiting our friend Noela a few weeks ago, she gave me some of the gold foil that is used for hot tooling letters and designs onto leather books etc.  She quickly showed me how to use a hot iron to transfer it onto a surface - especially PVA glue that has dried. It looked great on her mixed media work - dashes of gold; hints and traces here and there.

So I thought - I'd better try this out for one of my letters. The 'K' was drawn onto some card with a pencil, filled in with PVA glue, left to dry overnight and then the gold was transferred using a hot iron.

Not a brilliant result, but I think in the spirit of experimentation and learning that it's quite OK to retain the less than perfect ones - because they act as reminders of the trickiness of the technique or the potential for the technique.  I think because I was after a solid application it didn't work as well - the traces and hints seem to be better, and I'm not convinced that going over and over with the iron doesn't actually melt the glue somewhat!  All in all, good fun and I now know how I can use it on other things.

The bottom shot is the gold foil, front and back

5 comments:

  1. Looks good - even more stunning on black.

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  2. Love the richness of the gold.
    And also.. nice display in the library, lovely books.

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  3. Thanks Mieke - the gold has depth and texture I think. Thanks too for the comment re the library 'showing' - I must go take some photos before it comes down!

    Fiona

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  4. It's beautiful! so rich and dimensional.

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  5. Thanks Jane

    Funny isn't it how I looked at it one way and seemed a bit critical of it, but coming back to it fresh this morning with no expectations I can see its dimensional beauty quite easily! Thanks for helping my eyes see it differently

    Fiona

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I appreciate your thoughts and comments; thanks for taking the time.