What is the technique?

Transfer Printing is the transference of an image to fabric or other materials via a substrate. Image is transferred via heat and pressure. This technique relies on the fact that dyes sublime when heated which is sometimes also known as sublimation printing.

What are the relevant materials needed for the technique?

Wet Transfer(Transprint Ink)

• Transprint Inks
• Any material suitable for stamping ( plant, cut papers, sponge, etc)
• Papers
• Fabric
• Heat Press Machine
• Baking paper
• Felt(as based when heat pressing)

Dry Transfer(Crayon)

• Fabric Crayons(Crayola)
• Papers
• Fabric
• Iron
• Baking Paper

Digital Transfer(Magic Touch)

• MagicTouch
  TTC3.1 for soft surface(blue)
  CPM6.2 for hard surface (orange)
• Heat Press Machine
• Fabric (light coloured)
• Wood, Acrylic, Metal, Ceramics, etc

How to achieve the technique?

1. For Direct Printing
   Draw / paint / stamp/Laser Print desired design onto a piece of paper.
   OR
   For InDirect Printing
   Paint/Draw/Laser Print the full piece of paper with desired inks/crayon.
2. Setup the Heat Press Machine to respective temperature Or Prepare the Iron.
3. Place the materials in this order
   -Baking paper
   -Pattern/printed paper
   –(only FOR Indirect Printing) Pattern desired to be transferred as negative
   -Cloth/printing material
   -Paper towel/felt
4. Heat and check that design is properly transferred.

What are the uses and applications of the technique?

Printing on cloth/fabric/wood/metal/ceramics to create unique designs.

Photos

Temperature of heat press machine

Fabric Crayon and Transprint Ink pieces

The effect of fabric crayon and transprint ink is not good for rough fabric

Transprint ink looks brilliant with heat press on smooth fabric.

Crayon method produce very rough gradient, the grain of the crayon is very obvious.

Printed Transprint paper

Experimenting with many different type of cloth and texture

 

Own personal reflections

From this method I learned that unique designs can be easily achieve through heat transfer. However, except for the Dry Transfer techniques, both Wet and Digital Transfer techniques requires the use of the heat press machine, and thus might not be easily available for individual.

Also the results of the print are greatly affect by the temperature, the pressure applied and the quality of the design prepared, as well as the printed material. thus it requires a lot of trial and error before it is possible to achieve perfect printing.

For most of the technique, smooth surface like paper actually produce the best transprint design.

Heat transfer is very interesting as it allows one to try out many different ways of creating a design throughout the three different methods(wet/dry/digital) also it allows the creation of design with positive/negative shapes and overlapping. I think it was a great experience as it made me try out many different things that I’ve never done before.