Work Day…Seriously!

Yesterday an artist friend drove over to spend the day with me out in my “wet studio”, commonly known as the patio. I have a delicious screened-in place out back 19 feet long by 13 feet wide or so. She was wanting to learn some silk screening techniques so we went at it. We did soy wax designs and blue gel glue designs on the screens. We did paper resist screening and we did deconstructed screening. The “flavors” (dye colors) of the day were: terra cotta, chartreuse, eggplant, and turquoise.

The sun was so hot yesterday that we could literally “bake” the deconstructed designs on the screen in fairly short time. Then, if the dye pooled at all, it took many pulls to get it all out of the screen.  In this photo Julia is contemplating the screen design before printing.

This one made some awesome prints. This is just one of the many.

For patterns, this screen used a latex glove, wide rubber bands (our new love!), and large bubble wrap.  She got a lot of prints off of it and then I also printed to try and get the dried up paint designs off of it.

Here are some of my completed pieces.  These are all fat quarter size.

This one is just about my favorite.  Colors: turquoise and terra cotta, dirty print paste mixed with golden yellow.  Technique:  I used a glue screen.  I’ve been using this one for awhile and the glue is amazingly resilient.  It is breaking down in areas and could be touched up with more glue, but I used it as is.  Curiously, I planned on using a plain screen with no design, but didn’t have any available!  So I was stuck using this one!  I am SO glad I did.  I cut out some freezer paper curlie-q’s to mask out areas.  First printing with the turquoise, let dry a little bit, then I came back with the terra cotta, laid the screen down differently to get this layered, collage look.  I love the layered look, and the screen with glue curlie-q’s  is a perfect background pattern for my larger freezer paper curlie-q’s (I actually didn’t plan that).  At the end of the day, Julia was using a syringe to add some detail designs onto her cloth…I monoprinted the yellow bits that you see off of her golden yellow circles.

This piece: same technique…colors: terra cotta first, then chartreuse.

This one started life as “the dropcloth”.  Using turquoise and chartreuse I screened some of the pattern onto it, then came back later with eggplant and a syringe and outlined some of the curlie-q’s.  Later, as above, I did some monoprinting off of Julia’s circles with the golden yellow.  It needed that color.

This was a white piece of cloth stamped with melted soy wax.  Then it was cracked and I brushed chartreuse and terra cotta dye paint on it…this is the BEFORE picture….and following is the after picture…

The white areas are really white…I expect I will go in with either dye or paint and tone them babies down!

These are a few more pulls off of Julia’s lovely screen.

This one is at the end of the day…it got everything thrown at it.  Julia made a gel glue screen which is the repeated design you see.  I printed it over some stripes and then in the bottom row, we made an interesting find….I laid small bubble wrap under the cloth, then laid the glue screen on top and made a pull.  On the far right is that image…the cloth shows some of the bubble wrap pattern.  The middle image is the most fascinating one.  As I made the first pull with the bubble wrap beneath the cloth, the bubble wrap pattern shows up on the screen.  I removed the bubble wrap, made a print and the middle one is the result.  You only really get one good print using this temporary technique, but there was still a bit of the patterning left in the next pull (the far left print). That was an interesting discovery…I am not sure if I have seen others do that or not.  The random chartreuse pattern that you see is from rolling dye paint onto the pebbly texture of a liner for a paint pan.  The roller picks up that texture and you can print it right off the roller.

It was totally exhausting standing out  on the concrete all day, but we had  a really fun time exploring printing. I kind of want to keep going today…everything is still out there in the patio!

This Week…

I am working today making more bags…just two more festivals to go and then maybe I can “rest” a little. Ha!

But I also took a little time for play…

This is a fat quarter of black cotton sateen.  I waxed it, then crinkled it, then brushed automatic dishwashing gel on it.  I’m thinkin’ I’m in love…

Being Domestic Again…

This is probably my most favorite dessert ever.  It’s a Fudge Brownie Trifle, but I take it a step further and make it a Black Forest Brownie Trifle with the addition of cherry pie filling.  There is more whipped cream to go on top but since I need to be able to put a cover on the bowl,  I will put that on when I get to the ladies meeting tonight.

On working…Ever have one of those days where, you want to work, you know you need to work, to make art, you push yourself to do it…and the magic just isn’t there?  You wander from idea to idea…and nothing comes together.  That happened to me yesterday.  I sorta kinda didn’t feel real well, so I gave up and curled up on the couch for the afternoon.  But later…

On the art front, there is an arts council members exhibit coming up.  I have a piece I thought I could put in the exhibit…but upon reading the guidelines, they are limiting size to 30″ x 32″, so that means I have to make something new because almost everything else I have, has been in an arts council exhibit.  AND it can’t take a long time to make,  so “minimal” will be my  theme.  I like big blocks of color and came up with this last night.  I am going to use the full size allowance (I decided why not?), so it will be exactly 30″ x 32″.  Quilting lines in thick black thread to come.  So basically, it will be about color and lines.  The black and white stripe fabric is a screenprint from a soy wax design.  The colors should shake things up a bit in the exhibit.  There are a lot of painters in the arts council who do very nice representational landscapes and still lifes.

Working…Working…

I made some batik scarves yesterday.  I used soy wax on these, but am wondering if flour paste would be good to use. I may have to try it, but if anyone reading this has any thoughts about it, let me know in the comment section.  I do like the crackly lines.

I am also trying out some new types of silk from what I have worked on in the past.  I really love the flat crepe, the silk satin and the silk charmeuse.  I think the charmeuse is basically silk satin with a crepe backing on it, thereby making it a heavier scarf.  So this has been an interesting learning experience.  Tomorrow I will be putting these scarves out at the artisan’s festival.  I am always interested in customer response when I have something different to offer at shows.

More Painted Cloth…

This piece was done by stamping soy wax onto white cotton with a potato masher and the lid of a film canister.  Then I brushed turquoise and black dye paint on it making sure to get in all the little cracks and crevices.  I think I am going to brush other colors over the white areas.

For this design, I tore strips of freezer paper and ironed them to the back side of a screen.  Again, I used turquoise and black paint.

This is a screened design made with soy wax.  I used yellow and fuchsia dye, and also picked up some turquoise paint from the table.  These three fabrics all go together now.  I will have to be careful what other colors I add to the first one!

This one is made with the same torn paper screen, except that after printing the design in one direction, I turned the screen and printed it in the other direction too.  Looks like I used yellow and black dyes, maybe some turquoise.  The next one was done the same way, except with more turquoise and some fuchsia paint.

Black Cotton Sateen…

….Yummmm….black sateen is so nice. I was told by a fellow artist that the black sateen that Joann’s carries discharged to whites and greys….not so! Maybe it did at one time, but not anymore.

I went outside early this morning to do some discharge. Early…meaning I waited til daylight and went out about 7 a.m. By 8 a.m. I was dripping with sweat so I quit for the day. But I remembered that I wanted to do a screen design with dishwashing liquid. Well…now I’m hooked! Gotta get some more sateen!

Black cotton sateen discharged by screening automatic dishwashing liquid through screen with soy wax design.

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

Thursday This ‘N That…

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. He turned 49 and I made him a New York cheesecake. I haven’t made one of those in years…too much fat! Even though I used the 1/3 less fat cheese and low fat sour cream it’s still a lot of fat. Then I quilted the Rosa and Friends sample and put binding on. Well, that part is over. Now I just have to get fabrics dyed for the kits. I was going to dye on Tuesday, but a water main was broken and we had no water all day.

On Saturday I am doing a presentation called All That Jazz at Sew Tech. They asked me to do a trunk show as well as show quilts for classes that I teach and my hand dyed fabrics. I will also do a small demonstration of a technique. I plan to visit Dick Blick and Joann’s while I am in Evansville.

Not much else going on as I have lately been spending so much time on this sample. I have to get in gear and start working on pieces that I want to put in the textile exhibit next month. I have less than a month to go before everything is to be delivered to the gallery.

Some pulls from a soy wax screen. I love using soy wax! These were printed on the back of fabrics that had gesso and paint applied. The white areas are from the gesso.

One Of Those Weeks…

Ever have a period of days where you feel like you are just messing up everything? That’s how my week feels so far. And yesterday I said I was looking forward to a productive week…that was before I washed out my dye painted silk scarves and found they were much too light. I was dyeing the way I thought someone said on a list, but I must have missed some things or totally misunderstood what they were saying. They will have to be done over. Then today, determined to get back to work on the kits for Rosa and Friends (see post here) and finish them, I attempted some discharged black cotton this morning. Evidently, my dishwashing detergent is too old, because that didn’t work either, and they will have to be discharged again. And these were fairly large pieces. Sheesh…maybe I’ll just go back to bed! And both days it was hot and sweaty to be outdoors. I feel like I am getting nothing done this week! I hate it when this happens. Well, one bright spot in the week…I made this piece of cloth yesterday that I think turned out pretty cool…the only thing wrong with it is that it is a really cheap thin piece of fabric!

Previously painted with red, yellow and blue Dyna-Flow paint, I screened (soy wax design) it with Lumiere pearl turquoise and black Setacolor paints. It looks very rich in person.