Ramping up for C&G

Well I'm dredging forward on the Cities and Guild Certification. I have to pull together collections in Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Violet, Green, Red/Green, Violet/Yellow,Blue/Orange and an achromatic collection. Below are the pictures of those collections.

Round Robin Continues

Below are 2 pieces that I just dyed yesterday. The technique is called a Parfait Dyeing Technique where you place on piece of fabric in the bottom of a bucket and pour 1 cup of dye stock over that fabric. Let it sit for about a 1/2 hour then add 1 cup of Soda Ash Solution. Let that sit for 1/2 hour then I added the 2nd piece of fabric and then repeated the steps with a different color of dye and 1 cup of soda ash. The fabric was slightly damp when I put them in the bucket. The colors used were Eggplant and Hot Chocolate. This should be interesting for the Round Robins.

Flavor of the Day

Well I'm off to dye for a few Round Robbins so while I'm dieting I thought what 2 better colors to do as a "Parfait" technique were Eggplant and Hot Chocolate! Yum Yum... See I might not be able to eat/drink those things but sure can dye about them!!

I am involved in a yahoo group to pass around 1 yard of fabric in each group and each artist will add 1 layer of paint, dye, resist... whatever strikes their fancy. There are 7 of us in each group so when this comes back to me it will be touched by 7 wonderful artists all having their hand in seeing how this turns out.. Keep posted.. I will post the pictures of these 2 yards of fabric tomorrow after the parfait has baked in the 90 degree whether we are having this week in Indiana... wow what a crazy summer with the heat. Talk to you all tomorrow!

Printing on Cloth

I am working on making some printing plates (this is a loose term) for printing on fabric for my upcoming playday. I took chipboard and sprayed some spackling compound on the board, which is what they use to texture walls with when building homes. This gives some great texture.. All of these will need sealed with an acrylic medium to be able to wash off easily under water.






This piece I took joint compound and basically spread it on with a trowel and added some wavy lines too it.. definitely needs some sanding.










This one I used the same joint compound, spread it evening and smoothly on the board.. took a pencil and just drew squiggly lines.. Not sure how I like this one.. but doing this gave me some more ideas of what I want to do next.









And finally this one.. This is my favorite so far.. looking at this it makes me think... "Tree Bark" oooh what a great texture this should be to print with.

Isn't it just amazing what you can find around your house to develop these tools.. although I'm sure they have been used for this same purpose many many times.

Thanks for reading and as always.. please post your comments and or suggestions.

Does Life Ever Slow Down?

Geeez... where does the time go really?
Went to work yesterday came home with all intentions in the world to work in the studio... and pooof,, the Recliner won! Although I have been a bit of winy baby lately.. I hurt my back last weekend lifting 50# bags of dirt to do some landscaping. I know I'm not 21 anymore LOL But mentally I'm still there... Although others would argue that I act much younger! Ok Kids thats enough laughing!

Well below are 2 of the fabric pieces that were still damp.. now all dried and pressed. The Purple piece turned out to be one of my favorites.. Basically I took wet fabric... squirted the acrylic paint on it...layered another piece of plastic over it and used a brayer to smoosh it all together. Naturally I used too much acrylic as it is a bit more stiff than I would have liked, however the plastic touching the cloth is always amazing to me how it interacts, just like it does with dyes. And the Brown piece well actually that what was left of all my browns I was using and some white poured into a plastic container...stuffed with wet fabric and just opened it yesterday and hung to dry.. I think it turned out nicely for a background piece.

Carol if your reading.. these will be coming for the printing session!!!

Painted Lutradur

Continuing on with the Painted Lutradur. Some notes: Not as thrilled as I thought I would be.. The way it soaks up the paint is of course different than cloth..It did not seem to allow the fabric to move too much over it. I'm thinking when I do this again I might add some retarder to the paint to see if that helps blending. This Piece I used Setacolor on one side and acrylic on the other side.. both were watered down 50/50 mix


On This Piece I used setacolor for the background and then painted the strip patters using Black textile paint watered down. I did notice that a Sponge brush worked allot better to get overall coverage instead of a regular brush....

This one is one of my favorites. I painted the background with Dark Brown Acrylic Van Go Paint then painted with a Bronze Textile paint to get the pattern.. As you can see I have allot of glitter in the paints.. however it isn't too overwhelming I feel.. but adds a nice surprise




on this one I painted the background with Raw Umber Setacolor paint full strenght and not watered down. then I stamped with a dark brown acrylic paint watered down slightly with Liquitex Iridescence medium. I probably should have waited a little longer before stamping as the image was not as strong as I was hoping.





This piece I painted rough circles using a sky blue textile paint then I painted the background using Dyna flow paint.. you definitely get more intensity with the textile paints full strength.. and more of a wash look when watered down.



This was painted with an acrylic purple paint watered down with liquitex iridescence medium


And this one was just a combination of left over paints to use up what I had.






These will be great additions I feel to learn to print on.. who knows what they will endup.

Painted Fabric

After wonderful inspiration from Virginia Spiegel. I decided to paint some fabric at the lake house last weekend.. these are the pictures from my endeavors. While most of these I view as backgrounds, these will be great pieces to work from on an upcoming trip to see Carol Myers in her new Studio and do some printing on these using the press. That I am truly excited about.. I have been in the process of making some print plates using rubber bands, spackeling compound and string gel from Globe Paints. The Paint I used on these pieces were from Acrylic Paints from Van Go, relatively inexpensive, I did water them down and some cases added some Liguitex Shimmer additive to give them a silver sparkle shine. There are 2 more pieces that are still drying.. I guess I had left the plastic on good and sealed and when I pulled it off they are were still damp.. so they are hanging and drying now. So let me know what you think? Most of the pieces I just painted and dabbed.. then I placed plastic over them and used a brayer to smooth the colors together.

I will be posting pictures of painted Lutradur next.

Phsyched on Screen Printing

I received yesterday the Wonderful DVD from Jane Dunnewold on Improvisational Screen Printing... WOW is all I can say. Janes approach to this medium is unfounded and her willingness to share and teach is incredible.. And oh you have to watch the bloopers at the end... What fun. This has me totally phsyched to start hitting the Goodwill Stores for Sheer Curtains. This is a MUST for any fiber artist interested in printing on Fabric and or Paper.