Travel time again

Yesterday Eli and I flew to New York. He will go on to Israel today; I will remain in Renee's empty apartment for another 10 days, then visit with Renee for a couple of days after she returns. We flew into JFK and took Airtrain and the subway into the city, which worked well. Unfortunately, I could never do it alone. There are just too many stairs. I would have a terrible time wrestling my bag up and down, even though it's quite small. Unlike Japan, where there is almost always a clearly marked escalator or elevator, the MTA believes all of its passengers need exercise.

I brought my photo transfers with me, particularly to work on during my train ride home, you know, the nine and a half hour Toonerville trolley ride. I thought I had something I liked, but now I'm thinking this will only be practice and I'll start all over again when I get home. It's a good thing the obi is 18 feet long, so I have lots of fabric to practice on.

I made the second transfer on paper using Liquitex Matte Medium. With this technique you let everything dry thoroughly then wet the back of the paper and carefully rub it off. I began the process Thursday night and didn't like it at all. Too much of the ink comes off with the paper, leaving only a faint image. I had trouble spreading the medium and felt that was the problem, so I went to an art supply store to see what else I might use. I was going to buy some kind of gel medium. The sales clerk and another woman in the store advised me that the best way to make the transfer was to get photo transfer paper.

I didn't want white showing in the photo background so I Photoshopped the photo with a gray background almost matching the obi fabric and trimmed the white border before ironing the transfer to adhere it. I seemed to have burned one spot on the background, didn't have a good technique for pulling the paper off, getting some funny marks, and tried to iron it from the back, accidentally removing a couple of bits of transfer. The thing that really bothers me is the burn mark. Also I hate the way it feels. I'll see how the stitching goes; maybe I can figure out some way to disguise the burn mark. There's always more obi fabric.