Thursday, August 10, 2006


I've been experimenting with photos that I took in Spain. I'd like to have a thermofax machine to make screens with the photos, but I'm afraid it would be something else to distract me from what I should be doing! So these are iron on transfers, on fabric postcards. I took the scallop shell from a photograph of an iron fence. On the Camino de Santiago, the scallop shell symbol is everywhere, since it's the symbol of Saint James, and the symbol of the pilgrim.

I used Photoshop Elements to lift the shell image from the photograph, and printed it on t-shirt transfer paper. Having long ago lost the directions, it took a while to get a good print. First I ironed it on the wrong side - results below.

As you can see, my goof left a sort of afterimage of the shell, which I like. Another important piece of information I did not have is that the paper needs to be removed immediately, or it won't come off at all. And the iron needs to be moved around, otherwise the steam vents leave holes in the design.

Maybe I should invest in a thermofax after all. . .

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