Colour families day 3

On Tuesday I told you about the first two days of the Colour Families workshop.  On the last day I took my Venice Sketchbook with me.  I wanted to try to colour match a colour family to be able to produce fabric I could use for a piece inspired by the sketchbook.

Leslie particularly picked up on this section

 And in particular the window section

I started by using Dark Brown procion dye and Charcoal made from equal parts Dark Brown and Royal Blue to make this colour family.

This family is paler.  I added 2 teaspoons of print paste to every tub.

Then I added a small amount of turquoise to every tub - a dribble of dye while I counted 1 2 3.  Not a very accurate way to do it!  Plus I really didn't mix some of dyes together very well.

Using a roller I put the dye onto a cotton/silk mixture fabric.

I'm not sure how I'm going to stitch it.  I want to leave it as a whole cloth but it is a very lightweight fabric so need to think about how I am going to proceed.

I painted another piece of fabric which also needs some thought.

I feel I want to leave it as a whole piece and possibly stretch it over canvas.  It's the stitching that needs thinking about.

Or maybe I could cut it up and piece it in some way with this one from the last blog post.

Decisions! Decisions!

Thank you for joining me today
Bernice

Colour families

Last week I went to a three day workshop called Colour Families and Mark Making led by Leslie Morgan from Committed to Cloth.  She rarely teaches outside of her own studio so we were extremely fortunate that she agreed to teach at Littleheath Barn Studio.

A colour family is where you take two colours of procion dyes and mix them them together using a matrix.  Can you guess what colour I used?

Actually it was't turquoise on the first day!  I used Golden Yellow and Scarlet in equal parts to make an Orange (top left) and mixed this with black (bottom right).  Each colour that you mix is scraped on to soda-soaked cotton to keep a record of the colours.

This is the fabric washed out, ironed, cut up and stuck into my sketchbook.

During the first two days I concentrated on the Golden Yellow/Scarlet mix to black, then turquoise and then a turquoise/black mix.   The first one is a paler version of the family above.  To achieve this I added 4 teaspoons of print paste to each pot of the colours.

A new family using Scarlet/Golden Yellow and Turquoise.

And lastly in this series, Golden Yellow/Scarlet with a mix of 2 parts Turquoise and 1 part Black.

I used the colours in the pots to scrape onto larger pieces of cotton fabric.  This was the first family I made.  The photo was taken after it was washed out and ironed.

This was done with the last family shown above.  This is what the colours looked like whilst the dye was wet.

This is the same fabric washed and ironed.

The next two photos show two pieces I also scraped dye onto and printed on.  I used larger pieces of fabric and cut each of them in two.  Half I washed and ironed and you can see below after two days of 'batching'*.  The other half of each piece has been left to batch for longer to see if it makes any difference to the colour if you leave it soak in longer.

I'll tell you about day 3 next time.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

*Batching is a process where you leave dry dyed fabric rolled up in plastic for several days to allow the dye to sink into the fabric.

Leah Higgins Too

As promised last time, here are the fabrics I printed.  The colours in the photos aren't totally true to the fabric but you will see how using a colour family you can get lots of fabric that goes together.

Let's start with the ones that really didn't work well as part of the family.  However when they are cut up they may work after all.

Now on to the ones that did work.  Remember the grid I drew on the scrren with straight lines.  This is how it prints.

This was a mix of torn masking tape resist and embedded items.

The next few are various screens of embedded items.

Spreading the dye with a credit card

More embedded screens

Using crumpled up plastic bags to make the pattern on the screen.

 Another masking tape and embedded items screen

And the grid again

Another colourway from the masking tape and embedded items screen

Using the drippage screens

There are some more fabrics but I they are very similar to the ones you have already seen. Most of the fabrics will be cut up and used as smaller pieces but this last one may well stay as a whole cloth.  Still thinking about that!

And finally the whole pile!

If you are interested in breakdown printing and the way Leah uses it, you can see her gallery at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC from August 1st-4th.  It is undoubtedly the best fabric, stitch and quilt show in the UK.  Don't miss it.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Leah Higgins

I recently spent 5 days in Leah Higgin's studio learning about Breakdown Printing.  Leah runs some amazing 5 day workshops and she is an excellent teacher.  AND you can take her home with you in the form of her book Breakdown Your Palette.

Over the days I made various screens.  The first few on show here were made by drawing the dye onto the screen using Procion Dye mixed with Print Paste in a squeezy bottle.

 

These drippage ones were made by drawing a thick line of the dye mix and putting the screen upright so the dye dripped down the screen.

These next 3 represent the several (I lost count) screens I made by putting a layer of dye mix on the screen and then embedding bits of metal and plastic into the dye.

When the dye is completely dry you pull off the embedded bits and then it's ready to use.

On the first day I used the black dye which when it breaks down with print paste is quite a blue black.

The rest of the week I used Petrol Green and Rust Brown.   We did a 15-colour family using bucket dyeing.

Next time I'll show you the fabrics I printed using the numerous screens I made.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Catch up time

Last summer, just after the bandages were taken off my hand, I spent a glorious 5 days at Committed to Cloth.  The retreat was called Breakdown Printing with Colour Studies.  I went with the intention fo getting as much out of it as I could even if all I did was watch and listen.  I wasn't sure my hand would be up to doing any of the actual work.  But I did.

I have at last spent some time cutting up the colour families I made and putting them into a sketchbook.  I haven't been able to grip the rotary cutter firmly enough to cut up the fabrics into little squares.  But now, here they are.

Leslie dyed a colour family in the washing machine to show us how it is done.  It  produces an all-over dyed  smooth finish (above) whilst the ones I did produce a variety of textures based on the unironed fabric.    Dark Brown - Turquoise

Lighter versions

 Dark Brown/Royal blue - Turquoise/Royal Blue

Various experments

Then a change of colour

I managed to do all the breakdown printing whilst I was there.  All 8 metres of it.   I used the various colour families I mixed on the breakdown screens.

I ended up with some lovely fabrics although I still have no idea what I'm going to do with them.

If screen printing or breakdown printing interests you, there are 2 books I can recommend.
Screen Printing by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan
Breakdown Your Palette by Leah Higgins


Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice