So my next big project is called “Postcard to Myself” and it’s an expansion of a workshop I taught several years ago, this time in eBook form with eight or ten fun instructional videos embedded in the pages.

The idea is that we all have artwork that we make along our journey as artists, and every time we create, we learn something worth remembering. Not everything is worth saving and storing as a finished piece, obviously, but experiments can be saved in postcard size 5×7″ format with notes on the back about the process – what worked, what didn’t, and what were the profound surprises. These are the “postcards to myself.”

It’s kind of a different way to art journal, I guess. Every piece is an inspiration and a reminder of where we’ve been and what we’d like to remember. I should be finished with the eBook and videos by the end of June and will be asking some of you for reviews before it goes up for sale (cheap) on my website.

Anyway, part of the process besides writing the book is the experimenting and note taking. Yesterday, I was playing with an ink-jet transfer technique using matte medium. Here’s the image I found on Flickr Commons that I wanted to use.

I got the “bright” idea to undercoat the surface with white tempera paint before I did the acrylic medium transfer.

Well, duh. The tempera paint just kind of glopped into the gel and it was a big mess when I tried to peel of the transfer image.

Oh, well — there was a big fat failure. Until . . . .as the gloppy paper dried, the figure with its veil of tempera started to emerge a bit. I smoothed it out and gave it another look.

What if I cropped it and enhanced it just a bit with a wash of Quinacridone Azo Gold acrylic (aka “Secret Sauce“)?

This is the result – not a masterpiece by any means, but a 5×7 “postcard to myself” about an accidental process that has possibilities. I took notes to remind myself how this happened to attach to the back of the work.

Here’s the piece in a mat. I always encourage you to view your work this way when you can in order to isolate it, elevate its status, and give yourself a new perspective on possibilities.

So that’s an example of how a “postcard” might be useful when you’re working out of your comfort zone. And if it doesn’t work, you don’t have to let anybody know – although you can still make a note.

I’m going to end this post with a video about image transfer that I did back in the Old Studio days. The process uses matte medium and actually seems to be successful most of the time – here it is:

Video Link

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