Printing Class at Artistic Artifacts

We've missed a couple of days of posting because yesterday was spent teaching Thermofax printing at Artistic Artifacts, and Friday was spent preparing/packing supplies.  Even though the shop is local, we provide most of the supplies needed; it is a "wet" technique so there is a bunch of stuff to transport, which takes time away from other things.  We had a lively group of 7 creative women who were new to this printing technique and did a fabulous job!  Some printed exclusively on fabric, a few tried paper, and a couple brought along some t-shirts or sweatshirts for printing.  So they really "ran" with what they learned.  It was a great day.

Here are a few of their printed pieces.

Some worked on fabric that already had other surface design techniques, such as gelatin plate printing - a perfect background.  One student used a discharge product (colorless DeColourant) with a screen on a t-shirt to remove color, which leaves the fabric with a softer hand than printing with paint.  When the product is applied, it appears wet; after drying, heat is applied with an iron which completes the discharge process and color removal - the longer you apply heat with an iron, the more color change you get.  Didn't she do a great job?

How to Print with Thermofax Screens Tutorial

A thermofax screen is made from a black and white image along with a piece of mesh that has a plastic coating on the back; the two are run through a thermofax machine to burn the image into the plastic side of the screen.  The edges of the screen are then taped with waterproof duct tape to add weight and keep them flat, and to make a “well” for placement of paint.  The screen works like a stencil, but much more detailed images are possible.  Screens can be used over and over again.

Tools needed for printing include a padded printing surface – a piece of craft felt covered by a double layer of muslin or canvas works fine.  I recycle Styrofoam meat trays to use as a paint palette & hold supplies.  Small plastic baby food spoons are great for fitting inside paint jars.  You’ll need assorted sizes of squeegees (you can find a set of 3 graduated sizes in the detailing section of an auto supply store - AutoCraft and Bondo are 2 brands), including expired credit cards.  You may want to use foam brushes for more precise color placement.  And of course, textile paint – some brands include Jacquard, Speedball, Simply Screen, ProFab, Versatex, Stewart Gill, Tulip.  Finally, a cat litter pan is perfect for washing your screens, and a toothbrush helps clean off all the paint.

Start by putting a bead of paint across the screen; in this instance I will pull the paint from top to bottom, but you could also go side to side.

Here I am using a credit card to pull the paint across the image on the screen.  When it’s the first pull, you may not get a clean print – the first pull kind of “primes” the screen; you’ll probably need a second pull to get a better print.  After there is more paint on the screen, you should be able to get a clear print with one pull.  What you can’t see in this picture is that my other hand would be holding the top edge of the tape securely to keep the screen from moving (in this instance it was taking the picture!).  There is another picture later that shows this clearly.  Here’s the first print.

There are ways to work in additional colors.  I started with red, and then added some orange.

You can see on the right how the colors blend as you pull the new color across the screen.

Another use for the meat tray holding supplies is that the raised edge makes a good place to rest the squeegee when you need to set it down.  Here I’ve added a 3^rd color, burnt orange, which is a metallic paint with a bit of sparkle.

Here’s a better view of using my left hand to hold the screen in place while I use my right hand to squeegee the paint across the screen.  You need to be careful to keep the screen stationary to get a clean print.  You might also like to use blue painter’s tape to hold the screen in place, especially if placement is very important.  Below is a better view of pulling the credit card/squeegee.  Try to keep it at a 90 degree angle to the printing surface.

Here I’ve added some yellow to the other colors already on the screen.  You can see the print on the right.  As you continue to print the colors blend on the screen and squeegee.  Be careful about combining colors that are opposites on the color wheel – you might end up with mud brown.

In the next group of photos you’ll see that I continued printing until I’d used up as much paint on the screen and squeegee as possible and still get a clean print.  At this point you could just wash the screen, but there’s still a good bit of paint there.  If you take a small sponge, wet it, and squeeze out most of the water, you can wipe that across the screen and continue to print with the water in the sponge diluting the paint enough to print.  Pull the paint from the outside edges in towards the center of the image.  This can be done on small pieces of fabric, scraps, paper, whatever you like – rather than washing that excess paint down the drain, you can get a surprising number of prints from it.  When you can no longer get a clear print, drop the screen and other tools in the pan of water.

I couldn’t fit it all in this picture, but I got 8 more prints from the screen using the sponge to clean off the excess paint.

Above are the “regular” prints I did before the clean-up prints.  It’s hard to tell the difference.  Finally, everything gets tossed into the pan of room temperature water for clean-up.  Use the toothbrush to gently clean the screen on both sides, as well as the squeegees, spoons and anything else used.  Pat the screen dry with a terry towel and allow it to completely air dry before storing.  Wet screens stacked together may stick and then the plastic may pull off when you try to separate them.  With proper use and care, thermofax screens should give you hundreds of uses.

Tumble Dye Part 2

Fall Festival Wrap-Up

Winners of last week's giveaway were posted yesterday.  If you were not one of the lucky winners, some of the items are available in our Etsy shop  - the screens, of course, additional scarves, and tote bags.  More of the wall art quilts will be added soon.  Consider purchasing hand made items for your holiday gifts, and check out the other Etsy shops too!

Tumble Dye Part 2

After preparing my fabrics I was ready to try the Tumble Dye. The tutorials  at SEI Crafts show that you can wet the fabric first for more blending of colors, or use it dry for more color intensity.  I decided to wet it and scrunch it to help the colors blend.  After the initial spray, when I opened up the fabric, the color hadn't spread as much as I expected it to, so I decided to leave it open and continue spraying.

This is the fabric when it is still wet - trying to achieve a fall color blend.  The red was a bit more pink than I expected, so more over-spraying of colors was necessary to achieve the look I wanted.  So far, a disappointment with this product is the quality of the sprayer on the bottle.  I was hoping for a finer mist than what I got, and didn't feel like I had a lot of control with where the paint landed.  After spraying both pieces, I remembered a mist sprayer that Elizabeth and I had both bought in our shop hops this summer.  So I pulled that out and poured some of the Tumble Dye into the smaller sprayer.  Good decision - this gave me more of the control I was looking for.  The product I used is called Mist-It.

It is marketed not only for crafts but also things like perfume.  Since I bought this in a shop, I decided to search on line (by Imprint Crafts) and found it at SoftExpressions.  They come is 3-packs or singles.  I placed an order and they were very quick - less than a week from placing the order to receiving it.  Now I can work with multiple colors in the finer spray at the same time. More on the tumble dye results in part 3.

Fall Festival Giveaway Winners!

Thanks for your comments on the Fall Festival Giveaway items! It was lots of fun to read your comments and see where the viewers were from, also to check out the other blogs linked in the giveaway.  The winners have been selected using Random Name Picker.  If you are a winner we will contact you for your mailing information; you may also contact us via email (found in complete profile).

 

Drum roll please!

Day 1 - Winner of the screen printed scarf is Ohio Lori.

Day 2 - Winner of the set of 6 leaf screens is Kathy.

Day 3 - Winner of the set of small prints is Cloud 9.

Day 4 - Winner of the wall art piece is Gill.

Day 5 - Winner of the screen printed tote is Quilt Artist.

Thanks for your participation!

Tumble Dye

A few weeks ago we attended the Original Sew Expo in Fredericksburg and one of the products we purchased is called Tumble Dye.

I decided to do some experimenting to see how well this product works.  Previously, I have used powdered Procion MX dyes and Rit, which involve care to protect yourself from the dye particles.  This is a liquid dye already mixed that comes in a spray bottle, so eliminates the toxic nature of the powdered dye.  It is sold by SEI Crafts; on this page there's also a link to video tutorials.  I watched these before conducting my experiment.

The first thing I did was prepare 2 pieces of fabric, both 100% cotton.  On one piece, I printed with an all-over crackle screen to make a white on white resist.  On the other piece, I printed fall leaves in black with the idea of creating a fall-colored background on the piece of fabric.  Both of these were allowed to dry over night and then were heat set so the paint would not wash out.

The next post will show the dye application and some of the results.

Fall Giveaway Day 5

Here we are on the last day of the fall giveaway!  We hope you've had fun visiting our blog and all the others linked in the giveaway, and we especially want to thank Vicki Welsh of Field Trips in Fiber for providing the opportunity to join in on her giveaway.  It's been fun for us too, as well as a learning experience.  We hope you will continue to check in on us here at PG Fiber 2 Art to see what we are doing.

Today's item is a tote bag with the same screen printed image on both sides.  The bag is 13.5 x 13.5 x 3.5" cotton canvas and has the birds on a branch design which is heat set so if you ever need to wash the bag, it should do just fine.

To be entered in the drawing to win this tote, comment below in one of these ways.
1. Follow a new blog, then come back here and tell me which blog you are following in your comment.
2. View previous posts on this blog, then come back and comment on one of them. 

We have decided to extend comments through Sunday, October 19 at midnight.  So make sure you go back to each day and comment on each post to be in the drawing to win that item.  Winners will be selected using Random Name Picker and will be announced on the blog on Tuesday, Oct. 21.  Good luck!

Fall Giveaway Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of the Fall Giveaway!  Each day is a separate giveaway so be sure to return to each day's post to comment for a chance to win.

Today's item is a screen print turned into wall art.  Like the pieces in yesterday's giveaway, this was an extra print on a piece of Cherrywood fabric.

The print itself was first layered with batting and then quilted simply by outlining the image, and the edges were satin stitched.  Then I took a 9 x 12 art canvas and covered it with the purple fabric.  The print is attached to the canvas with the hand sewn running stitch you see around the edge of the print.  There is a saw-tooth hanger on the back for hanging.

It may look like the sides are a little curved in the photograph, but I promise they are straight!  That is just showing my (lack of) photography skill!

To be entered in the drawing for this item, leave a comment telling us what type of quilting/crafting is your favorite.

Winners will be announced on the blog on Tuesday, October 21.  Good luck!