Custom Screens

One of the services we provide is making custom screens from images that our customers provide, and we love to see images of what they do with the screens.  They can be from original drawings or photos, or any image that you have a license to use or is in the public domain.  One of our current customers, Lois Gaylord, has given permission for us to share some of her work for which we made Thermofax screens. 

Lois actually has 2 Etsy shops that you can visit for more pictures of her work, one is Lois Gaylord - Weaving Oneness through Spiritual Art and Textiles; the other is Weaving Oneness.  The first shop features textiles celebrating Jewish life.  The second shop features items of a spiritual nature.

Below are some photos of items that we made the screens for.

 

 

It looks to us like the screens worked well and that Lois does lovely work.  Please visit her Etsy shops to see more of her work.

What images do you have that could be made into custom screens?

Playing with Photos for Thermofax Screens

This is an edited version of a post from 2016. 

Have you ever considered how you might use your own photos in your art quilts or mixed media work?  There are several products available to create photo transfers.  You can also print photos on sheer fabrics like organza to create a different effect.  Some people use photos as the basis for a landscape or portrait quilt, using it to make a pattern for piecing.   At PGFiber2Art we like to use photos as the basis for Thermofax screens.  We use Photoshop Elements to turn photos into black and white images that are suitable for screens. 

This zinnia image is a good example of how many different ways an image can be manipulated for different outcomes.  Excited by the "what if", we created several variations of the same image that might be used together. 

Photoshop Elements is a powerful program and has many filters that can be applied to a black and white image.  Below is the black and white image of the flower with the background removed.

Once we have gotten an image to this point, we start applying filters from the Filters menu.  There are lots to choose from and it just takes some time playing to see what you like best, but usually we settle on one.  Each filter also has its own options that allow you to adjust things like darkness, contrast, details, etc. so the possible outcomes are many.  Just for the fun of it we decided to apply different filters to this flower to illustrate the options for students when teching this technique.  And that's when the light bulb went on and we realized that this could be a cool design element.  Here are 5 different filters applied to the flower image.

These will be made into screens in a variety of sizes, and then the fun with fabric and paint will begin.  Can you visualize how multiple variations of the one image will work together?  What images do you have that you think would make a good Thermofax screen?