DIY: Photo-To-Wood Transfer

For my Art Appreciation course project, I decided to take on a hybrid of sculpture and photography - an assemblage of wooden blocks, to be more specific - to break free from my painting-and-photography comfort zone. And to reach my aesthetic, I attempted a photo-to-wood transfer, as I would be using wood as my main medium. 

I saw the technique done before by several bloggers I follow. And although I've always wanted to try it out myself, I never found the time to do it. So while brainstorming for art piece ideas - depleting some neurons in the process - I knew that integrating the technique into my work for our upcoming gallery would be the perfect time to finally try it.

The goal was to successfully transfer photographs onto wood, without simply gluing them together - because that would just look crappy, and I don't want my project to look like crap. I want it to look well-thought-out and unique, and I'm glad my work, which I decided to call "Tick-Tock", turned out good enough. A little praise from my professor ("It's beautiful! I love it! It's something you can put on display when you already have your own house") also made my day :)

After our gallery, a lot of my classmates and friends, who found the technique interesting, requested me to post a photo-to-wood transfer how-to, hence this post.

Without further ado, here's how you can easily and effectively transfer your favourite photos onto wood.

DIY: Photo-To-Wood Transfer

What You Need:

-A piece of wood with a smooth surface

*However, for "Tick-Tock", I used wooden blocks with different sizes, which I requested from a local furniture shop.

-Gel medium

*The other blogs I have read used matte gel medium, but I used the heavy gloss kind and it worked just fine. You can find gel medium at the acrylics section of your art store.

-Mod Podge

*For this project, I used the matte Mod Podge, but the glossy kind will do too - it depends on your preference or on the availability of materials at the store.

-A brush

-A laser printer

-A scanner or a digital camera

*You will need either of these items to digitise old photos.

-Sheets of regular copy paper

-A photo-editing website/program

*I used the website PicMonkey.com to edit my photos, as I haven't installed Adobe Photoshop in my laptop yet, and it worked perfectly. It's very user-friendly, and I highly recommend it.

-Photograph/s

-A pair of scissors

-A hard plastic card

*You can use old gift/discount cards.

-Tissue paper or a towel

-Water

-Sheets of old newspaper

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What to Do:

1. If you've chosen to transfer old photos onto wood, you have to digitise them first by scanning them. You can also digitally fix/enhance their colours. 2. As I worked with regularly-shaped pieces of wood, I converted their measurements from centimetres to pixels, so that once they're printed, I could just cut the pictures and they would perfectly fit on the surface of the wooden blocks.

***But if the piece of wood you're working on is irregularly shaped, estimate its dimensions, print a slightly larger version of the photo, then just trace the wood's shape on the print-out and cut it.

3. With a photo-editing website/program, put the photos in reverse, as you will be transferring the photos face-down. Ignoring this step will result in an inverted and awkward-looking transfer. 4. Crop the photos according to their sizes in pixels.

5. Print the photos. Take note that in printing the photos, you MUST use only a laser printer, because inkjet print-outs easily get smudged and ruined when they get in-contact with any form of liquid, and this project requires the printed photos to get wet. So yeah, laser printer :) 6. Cut the photos.

7. Brush a generous amount of gel medium on the surface of the wood, and lay the photo face-down. 8. With a hard plastic card, flatten the photo on the wood and scrape off the excess gel medium.

9. Let your photo transfer dry for at least 8 hours. It would be better to let it sit overnight, though. 10. Soak the surface of the transfer with a damp towel/tissue paper. Make sure that the entire surface gets wet.

11. Once the paper feels soft and soggy to the touch, carefully rub off the paper from the wood. You can use a towel or a piece of cloth to do this step, but if you want a clean-looking transfer, better use your fingers instead. 12. Getting rid of the paper fibres is pretty tricky, cos once the transfer dries, they appear again. Simply repeat steps 10 and 11 until your transfer looks fibre-free. Be careful not to rub off the photo, though. 13. To protect the transfer, brush a layer of Mod Podge on the surface and leave it to dry.

14. Admire your work ;-)

♥Andz