Paint on Fabric with Kevin Womack

 Sue's first day class was Improv Paining on Fabric with Kevin Womack.  This was a "play day" to transform fabric with various surface design techniques.  We had various items like old kitchen utensils that could be used to create designs, stencils, bubble wrap and other items to create texture, objects that could be placed under the fabric and painted over for design & texture.  We also used color washes of diluted paint to transform a background.  Most students worked on white "new" fabric, but Sue used pieces that were previously dyed.  These were mostly pieces that didn't turn out well - too much white and/or blah colors, so this class was an attempt to make them more interesting.

work space

Image printed with a thermofax screen

Designs added with various mark making objects, a light blue wash colored in white areas

Design printed with a thermofax screen; original design is from a spiral masher/mixer (kitchen utensil)

 

This texture is from a length of cording placed under the fabric, and then flicking the paint brush over the raised area

Paint over a stencil created these images

It is fun and freeing to work improvisationally without thinking too much about what you are doing - just create!

Quilt Camp 2020 Week 2 - Resists

What's a resist?  A resist is something that blocks the absorption of paint or dye.  For this week's exercise, we worked with 2 resists.  One is a water-based resist made by Jacquard.  The other is white acrylic paint; Sue used Artistic Artifacts fluid textile paint and Elizabeth used Pro-Chem white paint. All of these products were printed though our Thermofax screens and allowed to dry overnight.

For the water based resist above, Sue used the crackle screen.

 

 For the white paint resist, Sue used the patterned circles screen; Elizabeth used the chain link screen.

After allowing the resists to dry, the next step is to color the fabric.  You can use dye or paint.  Being in different places, we are working with the supplies we have on hand. Sue chose to use Dye-na-Flow, which is made by Jacquard and is described as "extra vivid, ultra-transparent fluid acrylic paint that simulates a true dye."  It is very fluid, like water, and can be diluted with water for a less intense color.  For smaller pieces, it provides the ease of paint while acting like a dye.  Elizabeth used 2 different types of paints - Tumble Dye, which is a spray, and Setacolor which she diluted by half with water.  Elizabeth also used a wet sponge brush to spread the tumble dye which in addition to spreading the paint, brushed it off the white paint resist.

  

Sue's water-based resist piece was colored with a combination of teal and sulphur green.

Her white paint resist piece was colored with yellow, orange and red, brushed on in scattered areas.

The yellow was painted on first, then orange, then red.  More of all 3 colors were used to fill in and blend colors. 

Elizabeth colored her fabric with blue Tumble Dye and Canary Setacolor.  Where they overlapped and blended some green is the result.

After allowing the fabrics to dry, they were heat set by ironing from the back side.  Then they were hand washed in warm water with synthropol  detergent, rinsed and allowed to dry again. 

 

The water-based resist washes out and leaves the original fabric visible, in this case white. The white paint absorbs some of the paint color so it is no longer stark white, but the pattern is clearly visible. After drying and heat setting (ironing), you're newly printed fabrics are ready to use in your next project!

Elizabeth's Blog Prize

Recently Elizabeth was lucky to win a drawing by playing along with a surface design challenge on the blog of Julie Booth.  The prize was three books from Quarry Publishing.  One was Julie’s fantastic book Fabric Printing at Home: Quick and Easy Fabric Design Using Fresh Produce and Found Objects.  Julie shows you how to use found objects from around the home, particularly the kitchen, as well as fresh produce to print on fabric.

Another is Playing with Surface Design by Courtney Cerruti.  This looks like it is right up our alley here at PGFiber2Art!

The third is Tangle Stitches by Jane Monk.  Hand stitching is enjoying a resurgence lately, so this looks interesting too.

We will have hours of fun playing with the ideas in these books this summer!

Queen Ann's Lace

This is the description of her quilt that Sue sent to Quilting Arts magazine:
"I love the delicate, ethereal nature of Queen Ann's lace and enjoy using it in my work. Several stages of bloom are printed here, layered over a hand-dyed background and prints of grasses and a crackled texture. All the Thermofax(r) screens used are made from original photos. There are also words written in the background that evoke  the symbolism of the blossoms - bloom, blossom, grow, evolve, reach, unfold. Created with hand-dyed fabric, Thermofax screen printing, and machine quilting."

The words listed above were written first on the hand dyed fabric using a sharpie.  Then the crackle texture was printed, first in a transparent red and then metallic gold.  This is what the crackle screen looks like.  The screen in the Etsy shop is slightly different, but this one can also be ordered by sending a convo, and saying you want the one in the blog post (same size & price).

Next, some grasses were added to the background.  The curly grass screen is also available in the shop.  Then the queen ann's lace was added in various stages of bloom.  There are 4 different screens used in different sizes and variations.  (Two of these are in the Etsy shop.)

Sue briefly considered adding a decorative trim as embellishment at the bottom of the piece, but then decided against it.

It was a good thing, because when the backing was added and a quarter inch was lost all the way around for the seam allowance, it would have covered up too much of the queen ann's lace.  Below is the finished piece once again. The machine quilting mostly follows the lines of the imagery of the crackle, grass and queen ann's lace - click on the photo for a larger view.

Printing with Circles

Julie Booth is running a Scavenger Hunt on her blog to go with her book Fabric Printing at Home.  The first task was to find circles on objects from the kitchen and use them to print.  Sue collected a tray full of objects, but chose 3 for her printed sample.  Here's what she found:

And this is what she created:

She started with the bottom of the green plastic cup to make the first circle.

She used this wire egg beater that squishes up and down to make the spiral inside the circles.

Finally she added dots with the end of a cork from a wine bottle to complete the pattern.

Here's the finished piece and the 3 things she used to print circles.  Fun!

Elizabeth also found some circle objects to play with.  Here are her prints:

Left to right - a plastic magnifier, a small plastic plant pot, a cap from a vitamin bottle, a straw, a plastic suction cup, and a cork.  We applied the paint to these objects by dabbing it on with a sponge.  Take a look around your kitchen - see what circles you can find to print with!  And follow along on Julie's blog for the rest of the scavenger hunt - up next is "lines".