Passion Play - Piece 3

The 3rd piece in this composition is the largest.  It was about 7 x 9 inches, and was actually a test piece for a larger piece, where I was trying out my ideas before working on the "real" piece.  So keep in mind that whatever you make, even if it's just practice or testing ideas, can find a home somewhere.

This is the piece of fabric I started with.  The picture below was taken after the thermofax screen printing with 2 different screens and thickened dye.  But the thickened dye had lost a lot of its effectiveness, so most of what you see here washed out.  When you look at the final piece, you can still see the images from this stage, but they are definitely deep background.

After settling on this piece for my test sample, the next thing I did was print another background image with a round gelli plate.  I used a blue textile paint and used a textured squeegee to make swirls in it.  Then I placed the fabric on the plate and tapped gently to transfer the image to the fabric.  The picture below is of the larger piece after I made the sample. I didn't have a picture of the sample with just the gelli plate added.

Back to the small piece.  The next layer I added was the thermofax print of the ferns.  I used 3 different colors of paint (I think) that I blended with white to lighten the colors.  Here's what the screen image (available in our Etsy shop) looks like, and below that is the picture of the test print.

And finally,  a close up of the part used in Passion Play.  The stitching on the circular gelli print is done with #5 perle cotton in a variegated thread.