Attempting Tracy Roos' Faux Tintypes

Last weekend, because I was teaching my Colorful Faux Tintype Collage on Sunday, I thought I should actually try the technique described in the Cloth Paper Scissors article that had inspired me: "Traveling Back in Time: The Making of Faux Tintype Photos" by Tracy Roos (CPS #2 Spring 2005). There's a scanned copy of the article linked from this page. (Links are in the caption under the vintage photo.)

Tracy's technique involves making ink jet transparency transfers onto copper sheets and then covering them with mica. She also warns that "this process can often be unpredictable. There are days when I don't have one successful transfer and others when every transfer works like a charm!" So I was forewarned.... Here are my attempts:

(Click on the photo to see my notes - Crafting 365, Day 180)

I do like the effect when it works, because it does look like a real tintype, but I have to practice a lot more! I'll probably be using these somehow in ATCs for the next Milwaukee live trade.

I distinctly remember when I was looking for something new to do for the Milwaukee ATC live trade last October and liked the idea of her technique, but I
1) knew how problematic ink jet transparency image transfers can be so decided to use laser jet transparencies, which were easier for me to print anyway
2) didn't want to go to the expense of using copper sheet so used aluminum foil tape
3) wanted to do something more colorful!

I had already been playing with transparencies before this:

So it wasn't that big a leap to using the aluminum foil tape I had on hand:

The fun thing was seeing what the artists in my class would come up with using the same techniques (and this photo doesn't do their work justice)!

Alice & Tenniel

This week's Make It Monday theme is Cartoons, and since obviously I'm into the vintage thing, I had to go with a Victorian cartoonist, John Tenniel, best known for illustrating Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

I made four ATCs using the Alice's Wonderland faux postage set from Ten Two Studios, hand-colored and collaged with related text torn from an old dictionary.


The Punch website has a British take on the History of the Cartoon, which also shows how the word "cartoon" came to mean a humorous (er...humourous) sketch to be enjoyed in its own right, and not just a preliminary sketch or study for a work of art.

Crafting 365, Days 175 & 176

Something Hidden

I finally finished 4 pages for the "Something Hidden" page swap in the Mount Mary Book Arts Group! (Click on the thumbnails to see larger images in my Flickr photostream.)


Yesterday I got the hidden images and text glued into place under the tags, and today I rubber stamped the text, adding "Secret Music" to the angel page and the clear-embossed word "HIDDEN" on the back of the other three pages. Then I stitched around three sides of each page just to make sure the front and back sheets hold together.

As was mentioned earlier, these are each 5.5 x 8.5 inches and will be bound on the left side. The large floral images were torn from an old calendar to match the scrapbook paper backgrounds, and I used Dear Dolly and Fashionable Flapper tags and Little Children and Little Women collage images from Ten Two Studios for the three pages not already mentioned.

Earlier this month, I also finished assembling the copies of my page for the group's other book project inspired by The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman.

This is a 6x11" sheet folded in half and collaged on both sides to make four 6 x 5.5" pages. At our May meeting we're going to be deciding how to bind all our pages together, which should be interesting since one member did a pop-up in the middle of her spread!

Crafting 365, Days 157-159, 171, 174-175

If Music Be the Food of Love

I've been working on pages for the Mount Mary Book Arts Group. I had missed meetings all fall and winter, but some other members gave me their pages from the "Something Hidden" book project, so I'm finally making some in return. Since this week's Make It Mondays theme is "Music," my first completed page has sheet music and an angel musician from the Ten Two Studios Metal Tin Angels collage sheet. The angel image lifts up to reveal another musician angel hidden below. Page size is 8.5 x 5.5" with space on the left side for binding.

Crafting 365, Day 171

Spring? Spring!

Temperatures in the 60s? Crocuses blooming? Grass turning green? Could it really be spring? But I've learned not to get my hopes up too early.

This past weekend I had a craft day with my friend Laura. The past two years we've gone to the International Quilt Festival outside Chicago, but this year she had to work on the Saturday, and neither of us saw any classes that really caught our eye, so we just got together and played at her house. I used her as a guinea pig for my Faux Tintype Collage class that I'm teaching on April 27, and also showed her how to solder microscope slide pendants. Her first attempt was much neater than my first, second and third! (The other photo is her cat Dexter turning his back to the camera.)

Spring is at Hand

The crocuses are slowly coming up, and all the ice in the yard has finally melted (though it's 40F outside, and I've got my office space heater on as I type this). I'm slowly working on spring-themed ATCs for the Milwaukee live trade on April 26. This week's Make It Mondays theme is "Hands" so I finally used this folding hand ATC pattern from the Ten Two Studios "ATC Art Dolls" CD that I've been wanting to try since last year.

I also made the folding flower ATC from the "Amazing ATCs" CD using floral patterns cut from a fabric catalog and a vintage flapper from the Little Women collage sheet.

Crafting 365 Days 161-162

What to do with Bamboo

Ten Two Studios has these bamboo domino-shaped beads, and Lisa Vollrath challenged members of her design team to make something with them. I decided the shape and location of the holes made the perfect form for an art doll body. I've been wanting to make a button fairy after seeing so many posted on Flickr (including Margaret Field's tutorial) so I came up with this.

It had to have a bottle cap head, of course, with a face from the Tinted Twenties Rounds, and the wings are from a sheet of butterfly wrapping paper that I bought at Artist & Display.

Lisa posted a bamboo pendant tutorial with an Asian theme, so I tried a more Victorian version, making a faux tintype with aluminum foil tape and a packing tape transfer of a Victorian lady from the Little Women collage sheet jazzed up with a bit of Sharpie coloring. The cool beads are from Jess Poor, who has been cleaning out her studio space, and I strung it on silk ribbon.

Crafting 365, Days 159 & 160

"Make It Mondays" Returns

Lisa Vollrath has revived the "Make It Mondays" weekly creative prompt at Go Make Something, and I'm going to do my best to participate this year.

This week's theme was "Paris," and since I'm not one of those enamored with all things French, I didn't have any Eiffel Tower stamps or similar lying around. But I did find the brochure for the Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre exhibit that I saw at the Art Institute of Chicago, and I had the painted ATC backs and floral wrapping paper that I planned to use for the Milwaukee ATC group's April theme "Spring has Sprung." So this is what I came up with: