Opening Reception 2

Well, I have to say…..for never having hung textiles before, the arts council crew did an awesome job of hanging the exhibit. They did hang some student batik pieces this summer, but I am thinking they were all framed. They had all kinds of different hanging pieces for this Members Textile Exhibit, showing now til September 26 in downtown Evansville, IN at 318 Main St. The exhibit has much variety of work. Eight artists are exhibited and I think it is stunning. I’m pleased as punch to be a part of it. I got to catch up with another artist friend I haven’t seen for awhile and renew relationship with another.

And what does it take to find black Kona cotton? Someone said everyone is buying it up to make Halloween costumes. Is that possible? With the day being 2 months away? I think the last time I tried to find it in Evansville, there wasn’t any and I was going to have to order my own bolt. I generally don’t need a whole bolt but would like maybe 1/2. I had some gorgeous discharged black sateen and I sold all I had last weekend so it is time to get some more. Well, enough of my ramblings.  Have a great holiday weekend!

“The Note’ – framed collage

Opening Reception

Today is the opening reception of the Members Textile Exhibit at the Arts Council in Evansville. There are 8 textile artists in the exhibit. ( I am one of them!)  I will be heading out to Evansville today, first to do some much needed shopping and visit a friend who had surgery last week, then to go to the reception late this afternoon.  The exhibit runs til September 26, so if anyone is in the area, stop by.  The arts council is located on Main Street on the block between 3rd and 4th Streets in downtown Evansville.

A few more fabrics I painted yesterday….

screened in both directions with torn paper

construction fence design screened onto immersion dyed fabric

painted with sponge brush

fabrics drying on the clothesline

More Painted Cloth…

paint rag with hand stamping

paint rag with soy wax screen design

construction fence stencil

this reminds me of rain in a forest

shibori-with two knots tied in it

paint rag with soy wax screened design...I could do this all day long.

Falling in Love…

I am falling in love….with dye painting! I have been going out to my delightful patio and painting 2 to 3 mornings a week for the past couple of weeks. I am really enjoying this process. I painted more pieces yesterday and was going to go out this morning and hang everything on the clothesline to dry, but, good thing I didn’t as a small thunderstorm rolled through. What a mess that would have been. Thankfully, I have a nice warm garage to lay everything out to dry in. It got quite warm here yesterday, a change from all the nice mild weather we have been having. So here are a few of the better pieces from earlier in the week. I haven’t photographed yesterday’s work yet.

monoprint using leaves and other things from nature

monoprint

paint rag overprinted with soy wax screen design

Hand Stitching….

I have been doing some hand stitching. Who…me? Yeah. It’s something I don’t do a lot of, but there was a project in the 2007 Quilting Arts Gifts issue that caught my eye. As Christmas approaches, I am thinking about a present for a certain friend. It’s a quilted bag by Linda and Laura Kemshall on page 21. I figured the hand stitching is something I can do in the evenings while watching tv…and then there’s election day coming up. I will need some handwork to do!

I don’t do much hand quilting…like, none, to be exact. Not thinking, I layered my layers with a piece of cotton batting, since I use that exclusively in my quilts and only have that around. I will have to remind myself not to do that again! Hand quilting with cotton batting is not good. It will take much longer, I can tell. And I’m only working on a 14″ square. Here is the full view of the first stage in progress…layered paint rag, polyester sheers, dryer sheets, painted cheesecloth…

…and the close up view…

…this is kind of fun…I just have to remember to use some poly felt for the batting next time!

What Kind of Tea Are You?

I You Are Black Tea

You have a bold personality. You’re not afraid of simply being yourself. You have the courage to speak the truth. You are fearless in your actions. You come off as a bit intimidating and unapproachable. Only confident people are attracted to you. You don’t try to scare off anyone. You’re just an intense person!

What Kind of Tea Are You?

I got this off someone else’s blog today…see the link to Rayna Gillman in the column to the right!

Well, according to this site, this is what kind of tea I am. I think it is fairly accurate. I hope I don’t come off as intimidating and unapproachable. On one of the questions about what your friends depend on you to do, all of the answers except one applied, so it was hard to choose just one. I picked the one I thought was probably the best, but I wonder what difference it would have made if I had made another choice? Iced tea and green tea sounded like good things to be too. But I didn’t get to read anywhere what the qualities were of those “teas”.

Thanks to everyone who commented on the topic from my last post about Dye vs. Paint. It is very interesting to hear other people’s take on how they like to work.

I delivered 12 pieces to the Arts Council gallery yesterday. The textile exhibit starts on Monday, the 18th and goes til September 26. If anyone is in the area, be sure to stop by and see the exhibit. There are 8 textile artists being featured. The gallery is on Main St. between 3rd and 4th streets in Evansville, IN. Not much other news to talk about. Now that the delivery is made, I feel freed up to start new work and work on more dye painting. I did start this today…not sure where it’s going yet, but I get the feeling of stones, water and perhaps trees.

Dye Vs. Paint

I want to talk about paint. I love paint. I first learned about painting cloth from Mickey Lawler’s SkyDyes book. I bought the paint and colors she said to buy. That was Setacolor acrylic paints for textiles. I love them. I have since tried all the Jacquard paints and Golden Fluid Acrylics as well as screenprinting inks. I love to paint on pimatex cotton, a broadcloth with a high thread count. I think the paint looks better on this cloth. I love the ease of using paints. If I want to quickly change the appearance of cloth, I get out my stamps and paints and in a matter of minutes, I have the look I want. Paint dries fairly quickly. But a person can sink a lot of money into paints. The paint is also a surface treatment which does change the hand of the cloth some.

Now let’s talk about dyes. If you are a dyer of cloth, you already have what you need to make your own paint. You can make the paint very inexpensively. You are no longer working with pigments, as with paint, but now you are working with dye powder. There is a process with dye powder. If you are going to paint with dye powder, you first have to mix a chemical water that has a few different things in it. This is to help keep the dye paint wet enough for the batching time that is needed. Then you need to have a thickening agent to make your dye powder solution thick like paint. Since it is dye powder instead of pigment, there is a different consistency to it. If you are going to do layers of design, you will need to let each layer dry a bit, but not completely (remember,to batch, the dye needs to stay a bit damp), before continuing to add the next layer. (You could let each layer batch and dry between layers; this will take forever!) Dyes also love 70+ degree weather to batch in. Dyes do not change the hand of the fabric (this part I love). Oh yeah, one more thing: dye needs soda ash in order to make the chemical reaction. You must either soak the cloth in a soda ash solution, then air dry the cloth (start the day before you want to paint), or add it to your dye paint as you get ready to use it. This can be one long process!

So which is your favorite and why? I am basically thinking out loud here. I welcome anyone’s input if I have overlooked anything and I would like your take on painting with either medium.

soy wax screen design with ink

Results?…

Here is how the pink scrunchy thing with the dark places from the previous post turned out. The directions said not to push the paint too much into the stitches….oh well…it’s still interesting.

The snaky looking thing didn’t turn out at all as expected. The turquoise dye migrated, but the other colors didn’t migrate and make a very good pattern.

More Painting….

I painted some more pieces yesterday. Experiments…these are still wet in the pictures. They may look quite different after being washed. I hope not!

Painted with a sea sponge and salted with rock salt.

Three different monoprints in three different colors…chartreuse, turquoise, and black.

1st layer: chartreuse paint dabbed on with brush; 2nd layer: turquoise stamped with commercial stamp; 3rd layer: black paint stamped with potato masher

Sttiched resist….it may be a few days before the finished product is ready, but I will post it.

Brush cleaning cloth.

What’s this?? A snake??? No, it’s another stitched resist. This was painted with turquoise, fuchsia, and yellow. I can’t wait to see what all of these look like when finished.

I’m Cleaning Today…

It’s time to clean up all my jars and bottles and throw out  old dye solution that I was saving for whenever. Whenever came and went and I still haven’t used it. I did pause this morning thinking how much paper I could dye with all of it, but, since I couldn’t see myself dyeing paper all day, out it went. Time to get organized and cleaned up! I am preparing for a dyeing, painting and printing class for the artisan’s shop. I need to make some samples and plan the dye painting/printing part of the class. The class is scheduled for all day Saturday September 6.

If any of you ever buy those tie dye kits from Walmart, don’t throw out those wonderful plastic bottles with the tapered tips. If you don’t want them, give them to your favorite dyer! I saved a bunch from last year’s dyeing spree at kid’s camp. These are wonderful to have on hand for squirting dye in a small stream.

I mixed up the chem water and thickened it to make the paint. Now that I have my new little refrigerator from the back-to-school department of Walmart, I have a place to store the paint. It is the perfect size.

Two pieces I painted this morning before it got hot. Some stripes….

…and then stamping with a wide foam brush and syringe squiggles.

That’s all I got done today…had other things to do. I plan on spending more time painting in the morning. It has really turned off very hot here this week. These pieces are batching nicely in a discarded plastic shower curtain in the patio. Oh, did I tell you I save plastic shower curtain liners? I use them to cover my tables with when I’m working. And they wash up nicely in the washing machine.