Wall Art #5

Today's project:

This print has been ready to mount as long as all the others, I just couldn't decide on the right background.  Today I was looking through my stash and pulled out this piece and decided it was the right balance for the blue.  It is a piece that was originally dyed green, and this summer I over-dyed it shibori style in blue, just using up some left-over dye.  I'm happy with the result.

Additional Wall Art

Previously in some August and September posts I shared some screen prints that I was making into wall art.  As shown before, these are some of the prints I started with.

I have now finished the 4th piece in this group.  (I know, slow progress.  I have been working on some other things, but several of the projects I've done this year have been for exhibits and can't be shared.  So while it may seem like I haven't been doing much, I continue to work on these "secret" projects.)

The piece at the bottom right is the one I have just completed.  I really like the look of the "stitch print" fabric as background - it really goes well with the simplicity of the prints.  The fabric is stretched over a 9x12 canvas and stapled to the wood frame.  The prints are layered with batting (no backing) and thread sketched around the image, then the edges are satin stitched.  The size of the print fabric was trimmed so it would fit inside the wood frame of the canvas, in order to be able to hand stitch the print to the background/canvas.  The hand stitching is done with #5 perle cotton and a running stitch.  I have a few more covered canvases ready and waiting for prints to be stitched on, as soon as I do the machine work.

More Wall Art

I've worked on a couple more pieces of screen printed wall art.  I've also got a few "secret" projects in progress so I've been going back and forth between projects.  Here are 2 more of the prints.

What do you think? Worth adding to the Etsy shop?

QC6 Day 14

How can 2 weeks have gone by so quickly?  I guess when I look back at all I've done it's not so surprising but it sure doesn't seem like 2 weeks!  Today was definitely a productivity day!  I spent most of the day - all day - printing, trying out a couple of techniques I read about.  The first was a resist process by Jeannie Palmer Moore, printing with white paint on white fabric.  After it dries and is heat set, you apply liquid dye with a brayer.  I got so involved, I forgot to take "before" pictures of the white on white fabric!  But I do have pictures after the dye is applied.  Tomorrow will be the "wash out" to see the final result.  Of course, part of the process was using some newly made screens, so that was exciting too.  Here are a few pieces.

 This is the biggest piece, a half yard.  the screen used here is "crackle".  I used 3 colors of dye - coral, yellow, and parakeet.  The other pieces are all 9 or 10 inch pieces of fabric.

Along with this process, I tried another great idea from Diane Doran.  When finished printing with a screen, a lot of paint gets washed away in the clean up.  Usually I print on extra fabric to use up the paint but an even better way is to print with a slightly damp sponge which not only uses up the excess paint but helps clean the screen at the same time.  I got lots of extra prints from every screen I used.  Luckily I had brought along a Cherrywood scrap bag of 6 x 9 inch pieces which were perfect for using up the extra paint, and great colors to boot.  If you are not familiar with Cherrywood, take a look at their website - great hand dyed cottons with a suede-like appearance.

Above I was using a sponge to print with the excess ink.  Below, all 3 prints were made using the sponge and all are white paint, even though they appear different on the 3 colors.

Above are more of the prints on a drying rack.

Another technique I tried was using a brayer and liquid dye over texture plates.  This fabric could be cut up and used as is or another layer of surface design could be added. 

 

And one more thing, I made an addition to this piece that I started the first week with a sun print. Can you tell what's different?

  

QC6 Day 12

As indicated in yesterday's post, today was a road trip day.  We started off with a stop at the Tuftonboro library's annual book sale, and I found a lot more than I expected to.  The best find is the big book of clip art - all art in the public domain.  I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet, but I'm sure it holds a treasure trove of images for screens and inspiration!  There are a couple of other books for design ideas, plus some on quilting, embroidery, felting & knitting, and mixed media.  Lots of inspiration!

From there we headed to Portsmouth, NH to the first of 3 quilt shops we visited.  All 3 are participating in the Row by Row Experience shop hop, so we picked up our free patterns and a few other goodies.  The row designs include sailboats, hot air balloons, and a pinwheel-type design. The painted quilt blocks are on a garage door at the Village Quilt Shop in Berwick, Maine - we did  jump over the border from eastern NH to add another state!

In between, we made a stop at Salmon Falls Stoneware outlet store.  They have some beautiful pottery.

I showed a piece of orange fabric yesterday that I did some discharge on, but didn't have a picture of the over-printing.  I added turquoise "bubbles" to help tie it in to the row that I want to use it with.

After the all day road trip, a stop at the grocery store, and then fixing dinner when we got home, there wasn't time for much else.  I rinsed out the pieces in the dye pots from yesterday (the red napkins and the small pieced log cabin piece) but they require more washing before they are ready to show.

Tomorrow there is a fiber art fair in Center Sandwich, so we will probably head over there for a bit.  But hopefully get some more project work done as well.

QC6 Day 8

This morning I spent some time sewing to complete a quilt row that I started putting together last night.  It is for the Virginia Row by Row Experience.  This is actually a national shop hop for quilters' as they travel around through the summer.  There are quilt shops in 34 states participating, and over 1250 quilt shops!  If you visit participating shops in person, you can pick up a free pattern for a row designed by that shop.  The theme is "seasons" so all the shops chose one of the 4 seasons for their design.  Many shops also offer kits for their row if you want to make yours just like theirs.  If you combine 8 rows into a finished quilt and are the first person to bring it to a participating shop, you can win 25 fat quarters of fabric.  Row by Row Experience is the national page from which you can access all the participating states and shops.

The row I am working on was designed by Artistic Artifacts.  Judy featured thermofax screens created by PGFiber2Art (that's me and Elizabeth!) and wooden printing blocks with strip piecing to create a contemporary spring row.  I followed her lead to create my own fabric featuring text screens ("art" and "stitch") on top of a gelatin plate printed background, and added a final layer of screen printed ferns.  The base fabric was hand dyed, so the whole piece was created from scratch beginning with white cotton.  (I shared the picture a few days ago but will show it again.)  This is the row that Judy designed.

Here is my hand-made fabric.

This is the row that I made using my fabric and pieces of batik for the strip piecing.  The darker strips between the rows is some of the "tree bark" fabric shown in yesterday's post.  That will also be used for the binding after the row is quilted.

I'm not planning to make a quilt with the rows I collect (at this point); so far I'm just thinking table runners.  We got the pattern from Keepsake Quilting (New Hampshire) last week, and will be visiting a few more shops tomorrow.

QC6 Day 6

Today was much cooler and quite windy all day.  I got a few things done this morning before heading to Moultonborough for the library used book sale and Center Harbor for a stop at Keepsake Quilting. (Yes, we were just there on Tuesday.) I don't know if you can see the white caps on the lake but they were quite big compared to the calmness just 2 days ago.  I washed some 5" squares and hung them to dry - it was a great day for drying fabric on the line.

 

I found just a few things at the book sale - mostly embroidery design books for inspiration.  Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a book that was recently recommended, so was glad to find that.  And the prize - Zucchini 75 Ways!

On the way back, we stopped to pick up some lobsters for dinner at Bart's Seafood.  It's just a roadside stop with an eclectic collection of rusty stuff by the entrance.  But a typical New England scene.

I did some more studio work when we got back.  One thing I did was try out a product called Color Magnet.   It is a dye attractant that you apply to fabric before dyeing  and those places should be darker than the rest, making a tone on tone fabric.  I used thermofax screens to print all-over designs.  In these pictures it is wet from the application.  We'll see how it turns out tomorrow.

A quirky thing about New Hampshire is the things you see along the road.  Here's one example.  There's a barn we pass that has always had a giraffe head in one of the windows.  A few years ago, there was a new addition - a baby giraffe! 

This year, we're back to just the momma giraffe. But in the window to the left there is a new addition.  I believe she's wearing a military helmet.

QC6 Day 5

Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July.  The 4th at Lake Winnipesaukee was a washout this year - literally.  It rained off and on all day - I've never seen such a quiet 4th on the lake.  Although fire works can be heard now, so I'm sure there are more to come.   The day was spent mainly in the house, not much work in the "studio" today. 

This morning was a good time for computer work.  I added 4 of our new screens to the PGFiber2Art Etsy shop - check them out!

I printed fern #2 (above) on the fabric from yesterday that has gelli printing and 1 layer of text screen printing.  I really like the way it turned out.  I also threw a few previously dyed pieces into the soda ash solution to get them ready for over-dyeing to spruce them up.

And then this afternoon I made a strawberry pie - at least we could have a patriotic desert with our hamburgers & hot dogs!

I attempted to do a little bit of sewing but didn't get very far.  That was my day.  How was yours?

QC6 Day 3

Today was a better day, at least I got started on some things.  It's hard to believe its day 3 already - I feel like I've been in a fog.  I took 2 hour naps at 5:00 for the last 2 days.  But today I made it through the whole day awake!  This morning I spent some time figuring out what to start on.  I intended to start with gelli plate printing a background layer, but then side tracked to 2 other things and never got back to the gelli plate, so that will be on tomorrow's agenda.  First I prepared a piece for sun printing.

 

I started with a fat quarter that was pale yellow from a previous dye bath and placed it on a foam core board covered with plastic.  You can see from the pink on the sides that it has been used before.  The first step is to saturate the fabric with water, then apply paint.  I used Pebeo Setacolor that was diluted about half & half with water and brushed it on with a foam brush; I used, green, yellow and blue and blended them together.

 It picked up a few spots of paint from the plastic, but that's OK.

Then I placed my printing objects on top.  I had some new stencils I wanted to try, but they didn't take up enough space so I added some natural elements - ferns and wild flowers.

After everything was in position I covered it with a piece of organza and tacked it down. That keeps things from blowing away or shifting position if there's a breeze while it sits in the sun.  It needs to sit in a sunny spot until its dry.

When it's dry, you can remove the organza and printing elements.  It needs to be heat set (with an iron) before washing.  You can always add another layer of sun printing or other surface design technique.  Here's the finished piece, although this photo came out lighter than it really is; the color above is more accurate.

The second thing I worked on today was trying a new product called color magnet.  Its a dye attractant, so when you dye something, more dye is attracted to the parts that have the color magnet applied.  I screen printed some flowers on a shirt, and left it to dry overnight.  Tomorrow I will apply the dye. (You can see the sun print in the background - that is the true color.)

And one more thing I did today was make and tape more screens!

The fern and pine cone were gathered on my morning walk, and tomorrow I will be able to print them!

Post SAQA Conference Printing Class

PGFiber2Art was honored to kick off a week-long series of special classes at Artistic Artifacts that followed the Studio Art Quilt Associates conference held in Alexandria last week.  Last Sunday afternoon we had a group of 10 delightful ladies for Thermofax Screen Printing, 5 who were local and 5 who attended the SAQA conference from other states - Colorado, Arizona, South Carolina, and Georgia.  They created some lovely pieces of fabric and were willing to experiment and try new things.  It was a relaxing and fun afternoon.

Above are several students hard at work. As part of their kit they chose 5 fat quarters of both hand-dyed and commercial fabric to print on.

The snowflake fabric turned out awesome!  The hand-dyed fabric is the perfect background for the all-over snowflake printing.  Below, two different circle screens are used in different colors to create layers and depth.

 I love the way these 3 prints of money plant are slightly overlapped, and also the combination of a natural design element with text.  Below a tree bark screen is combined in different colors with text.

 The piece above was created with 4 different screens and different colors to add texture and depth.

Jeanne is hard at work!

Spring Printing Class

We had a small but mighty thermofax printing class Saturday at Artistic Artifacts with students who tried some new (to us) things.  For 2 of them, it was their first time at the shop.  One works primarily on paper, so was interested in trying different paints & inks to see what works best.  Another did some printing on felt - it worked surprisingly well.  Here, the pine branch is printed in white on green felt.

Below are some samples of printing on paper.  It's important to try different types of ink and paint to see what works best.  Also different papers will have different absorbency.  Some of the textile paints will work just fine but there are also inks intended for printing on paper that are a bit thicker.

It's always stimulating to teach in the colorful, creative atmosphere of Artistic Artifacts.