The surrealist Oscar Domínguez referred to his work as "decalcomania with no preconceived object". He took up the technique in 1936, using gouache spread thinly on a sheet of paper or other surface (glass has been used), which is then pressed onto another surface such as a canvas. Dominguez used black gouache, though colours later made their appearance. German artist Max Ernst also practised decalcomania, as did Hans Bellmer and Remedios Varo. French surrealist Yves Tanguy used the technique in his 1936 works Paysage I and Paysage II, which were included in the Guggenheim Museum's exhibition "Surrealism: Two Private Eyes" (4 June – 12 September 1999, New York).
I did a workshop once, back in 2013 where among drawing techniques I also spoke about decalcomania, since some of my drawing techniques were derived from my earlier experiments with paint.
While the Surrealists used oil paints and a sheet of glass, I adapted this to acrylics - not as easy, since you have to work fast because of the short drying time - and I used other tools es well, such as crumpled newspaper, rubber gloves, plastic sheets, balloons etc, in short, anything you could press on the paint or manipulate it with. With oil paints, while the paint is still open, you can wipe out parts, while with acrylics, you can over-paint areas.
Another way with acrylics is to create these images on mylar (plastic sheet) and work with it like a behind-glass painting. Once done, this can be framed as is, or else transferred with acrylic medium onto canvas or any other support. When the medium is bone-dry, you can soak the area with water and carefully peel the plastic sheet off. This way, you can create collages as well, such as this larger work, created in 1990 that bears a similar title, Bogomil Landscape:
some of the decalcomania had been done directly on the canvas, but other elements were cut and pasted from plastic sheets.
I hope you find this inspirational. I am going to pick up this tread again and there are several larger works on the back-burner in my studio. This little panel was sort of a warm-up exercise.
