Polaroid Transfer

Legends!

If you have been following along on my instagram, you'll notice that I started making Polaroid transfers!

I had seen this process online and had been quite enticed about it. I wondered how difficult it would be. I've been leaning more heavily into printed/hand-made creations, and I had a kind of a-ha moment where I realized I had all the equipment needed to create!

Creating these also made the launch into selling my first prints!

These two are now available to own!

They are 8x10s, and printed from my favorite print shop.

They are $30/each, or $50 for both (use code STILL10).

THE PROCESS:

First, you take some Polaroids. Apparently, the sooner you do the transfer after you've taken it, like within 24 hours, the easier it will be to remove the image from the plastic and also you won't get a lot of breakage in the image like I did.

I took these photos 4 days before I did the transfer, and the aggression I needed to get the pictures off was way more intense than anticipated.

Next, you cut the border around the image off. You're left with just the image, the plastic protective cover, and the chemical peely-part on the back.

You then peel the peely-part off, and you're left with the ghost of the image, which I think is a really beautiful art piece on its own.

Ooooh. The memoryyyyy of images paaaaaast.

You'll then have a tray large enough to fit whatever you're going to transfer the image onto. In my case, I am using a 9x12 baking dish, because I'm transferring the Polaroid onto roughly at 5.5x7 piece of watercolor paper.

The water has to be warm-- a bit above body temperature. I boiled water then added some cold water and made it probably around 100degrees. Then I slid the photo in.

Then, I used a semi-firm paintbrush to start brushing the image off. At this stage, white chemicaly stuff started clouding the water. This, from what I understand, is because of how long it has been since I shot the Polaroid. I think it has been a week with this one in the example... to reiterate, it is best to do this process within 24 hours of shooting the Polaroids.

So now the plastic is off, and the image is floating like a jelly fish in the warm water waiting to find its forever home.

I then slip the watercolor paper underneath, grab the image, and pull the paper out. It will naturally fall in a very beautiful way, but you can use the wet brush to do minor adjustments once the paper is out of the water.

And then, boom. Let it dry on a towel so each element can dry at its own pace (so the Polaroid will adhere and grip as solid as possible). It is not recommended to sit in the sun to dry, or to use a heat element, as the Polaroid and paper will dry in a way that may crack the image.

I hope this was fun to see!

You can purchase prints here. Use code STILL10 for $10 off both images <3