Eco Transfers with Waxed Paper

In a change from conventional drawing styles, Robert Rauschenberg created transfer drawings in the 1960s. He used turpentine or lighter fluid, newspapers, and a dry pen to make montages of appropriated headlines and disparate images that united in one large picture. He began these drawings in 1958; an exhibit of the works were presented at the Jonathan O'Hara Gallery in New York in 2007. The words and images were always reversed, the hatch marks showed. Sometimes the overinked sections of the soaked newspaper functioned as color blocks. The transfers are ghostly, yet the marks show movement and traces of the hand.

If you like creating narratives with found text or you enjoy making montages with imagery, you might be interested in this waxed-paper transfer technique. It involves only a piece of waxed paper, a fresh newspaper, and a burnisher, such as a bone folder, the handle of a spoon, or the cap of a pen. The beauty of it is that it is non toxic and inexpensive. The results are somewhat ghostly and can be a nice starting point for colored pencil shading or watercoloring tinting. With this technique, the words and images are right reading, not backwards like Rauschenberg's. Black ink works best, but some colors will also transfer.

1. Locate the image or word you want on a piece of fresh newspaper.
2. Put the waxed paper over the image/word.
3. With the burnisher, rub gently, but thoroughly
4. Peel the waxed paper up.
5. Position the image on a new piece of good cotton paper or inside a book you've made.
6. Rub the image or word onto the paper.
7. Repeat multiple times. 
8. Shade with colored pencils or watercolors, if desired.

If you have a copy of the now out-of-print Unique Handmade Books you can find transfer techniques on page 110.

Not Rauschenberg