Wintergreen Oil Transfer

I have found a new method of transferring drawings to canvas besides the oil transfer.  Jeremy Deck showed me how to do a wintergreen oil transfer.  Footnotes are included in this post to indicate which sentences in this post are summarizations of ideas that Jeremy Deck explained to me.

A wintergreen oil transfer begins by photocopying  the drawing in reverse.  Then one applies two sheets of foam core up and inside of the stretcher bars to brace the canvas when it will be pressed on during the transfer.¹  The canvas must be places above the ground and should be supported by something in the center.¹  The photocopy is then placed face down on the canvas with a bit of a border and the edges of the photocopy are taped down so it will not move.¹  Then wintergreen oil is quickly applied with a bristle brush.¹  Since too much wintergreen oil results in the transfer to become smeared and too little results in a weak transfer the idea is to scrub the wintergreen oil onto the photocopy so it is not too much.¹  Then paper towels are applied to the back of the photocopy for about 30-50 seconds to absorb excess oil.¹  Then the copy is scraped from the top to the bottom with the edge of a spoon.¹  Pressure is to be applied to  areas of the photocopy in multiple passes and one is to do the same from the opposite side as well.¹  The photocopy can be removed and the transfer is permanently fixed to the canvas and turpentine has no effect on it.¹  This is very useful if one does not want to lose all of the subtle tilts found during the final pass of a block-in.¹


Footnotes
¹ Jeremy Deck, personal communication, 2012.