Look - I did manage to do something ...

But first ... we watched 3 episodes of 'The Good Wife' back to back last night - what really despicable people feature in this programme - each time we watch one, there's something else that takes our breath away with disbelief. The third episode was the most disturbing for me, I think. A scheduled execution at a prison in Chicago. The warden was a stickler for the rules. The brutality wasn't callous as such, but so very, very calculated. Not justice, but revenge.

Sunday - had a bad nightmare; riding in the back of a truck, which was crossing a mountain road that had 'falling debris' problems. Sitting beside me was a fat old woman who was telling me what a bad person I was for letting my daughter play with the child of Muslim parents - "They're all terrorists, you know! And as for those Jews, well, you know what they're like!" I woke up from this at 0700, and got up and went to do some art for an hour before leaving for church.

I made a monoprint by laying a piece of gladwrap on top of a freshly painted canvas, (greens & yellow) then laying it on a 12x12" piece of scrapbooking paper. Later I repeated this with browns and reds:

It has a quite organic feel to it. And no, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Yet.

Mr B & I did the worship audio this morning. I took my laptop to church with me, as the church laptop has reached the end of its life, and keeps crashing. It was very satisfying being able to do the powerpoint presentation - both worship and lesson - and record the audio. After church we went out to lunch with friends, to a place called Carriages - old train carriages that are placed between a garden centre and a pond - very pretty, and a good meal too. We then did a little retail therapy in the garden centre - only $4! After that, we were going to go wine-tasting - FAIL! the place was closed. Oh well, another day.

Came home, took the dogs for a walk thru Henderson Park - Tara went splashing thru the mud, so had to bath both of them when we got home. UGH.

Then - play time. I wanted to print some images onto tissue paper. I've never printed onto paper this fine before, and previously, just taping the leading edge of the lighter paper to a heavier carrier page has worked ok. Not tissue paper - printer ate it. Ok. Attempt 2. Put adhesive tape down the sides too. The result:

Tissue Print Fail
So, Google being my friend ... First one I find, of course, says stick down the edges. Tried that.

Then found a site that talked about using glue stick - yuck. Way too messy. Spray adhesive - now you're talking!

To summarise: * using a spray adhesive - I have some stuff from Arbee, colourless and fast drying - spray your carrier sheet.
* Use a larger piece of paper or light card or cardboard to lift off excess adhesive - pat down and lift off about 4 times, until the carrier sheet is barely tacky.

* carefully lay a piece of acid-free (lignin free) tissue paper on the carrier sheet. I had already cut the tissue to size.
* put sellotape along the leading edge, so you have a single layer. Previous experience has taught me that otherwise the feedrollers will try to separate out the two sheets anyway (there has to be something good about having been a printer tech!)
* run through your INK JET PRINTER - not a laser printer, because it will wrap itself around the heat/fuser rollers - watching its progress all the way.
* remove carrier sheet immediately - otherwise you risk a permanant adhesive!
* the youtube lesson was for decoupage use, so they used a spray sealer on the finished image. I'm using mine for mixed media collage, so want it to disintegrate a bit, so I won't be sealing it.

Except for the fact that my printer decided NOT to print blue/yellow (it's been ages since I used the machine, and I think the Melco inkpots haven't fed thru the tubes properly), I'm actually rather pleased with the magenta hue of the images:


A very satisfactory day.