Layers of Text

I spent two days this week attending the Summer School at Littleheath Barn called Layers of Text.

Liske's aim was that we would print less metres of fabric but have several layers on the fabric we did print.

I had written Captivity, Freedom, Identity on one screen with flour paste and Dancing in Fetters on a second screen also with flour paste.

When the flour paste was dry I scraped thickened Procion dye through the screen which breaks down the flour paste.  A different take on breakdown printing.

The piece above was printed onto Organdie with a piece of muslin underneath.  The image went through the Organdie and coloured the muslin below. 

 

 

I scraped flour paste over a piece of calico and wrote into the flour paste.  When this was dry the calico was screwed up to make the flour paste crackle.  I scraped thickened dye over the fabric.  With the small piece at the bottom I tried using Masking Fluid to write with using a brush before putting the dye over it.

 

 

The top fabric is Organdie and the bottom piece is muslin.  I used a Thermofax screen and a mixture of two colours of thickened dye.

 

 

I wrote on this piece of calico with a Copic Wide pen with what I had hoped contained a permanent ink.  I used thickened dye to write the rust and ochre words and a Thermofax screen for the chains.  However when I washed the fabric the black ink leached out leaving blue writing.

Not that it's a problem!  I can make the piece again on non-soda soaked calico and use fabric paints with the Copic pen.  That's if I decide I need to do it again.

In the meantime, this last piece matches the other fabrics I printed rather well, so I will cut them up and piece them together.

Watch this space!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

Summer School

After an uncomfortable two days of extreme heat for the UK, I spent two cool days (in both senses of the word) at Littleheath Barn with Liske's 'Art Cloth: Maps and More'.

We spent the two days trying out various techniques with a limited palette to produce some fabrics that sit well together.  My colours were basically rust, slate grey and a little charcoal dye.  The aim was to produce fabrics that were dark, medium or light.

Sadly the photographs don't really show the true colours of the fabrics.

For this fabric I put some white acrylic paint through a bought stencil.  I put narrow masking tape on a screen and printed through it.

right side

reverse

Liske had demonstrated how to make a breakdown screen which I used.  It didn't breakdown as much as I thought it would.

right side

reverse

This is muslin which I wrote on with dye.  I scraped dye over the one end and used a thermofax screen on the right.  I cut it into two pieces.  The top part shows the results of using flour paste as a crackle which I put rust dye over.  I scraped pale rust over the the bottom piece.

I used soy wax and drew lines over my screen and scraped dye through the screen.

right side

reverse

I made a screen by spreading a thin layer of flour paste on it.  On one half I put a bought stencil.  On the other half I scraped lines and shapes when the paste was dry.  I also used the stencil to fill in the gaps so I have positive and negatives of the design.

right side

reverse

I scraped dye over this piece of muslin so I have some matching plain fabric.

At the end of the day I had a fabulous piece of dropcloth.  I had started the two days with a new clean cloth.  I cut this piece from the dropcloth and sprayed a soda ash solution over it to fix the dye. It's cotton drill which is heavier than the calico and muslin I had used so it will possibly become a background.

We're back next week for another two days of composition, planning and making using the fabrics. Although we may start with adding more layers of design using fabric paints.

I've no idea what I shall do with all these fabrics.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

And then . . .

I made some more!

Yes more 10cm square collages for the Textile Explorations workshop.

I'm trying to use up fabrics I have already made for previous projects.

Some of the collages are random.  Actually all of them are random! But some fit Liske's list of things to explore.  Below right is a log cabin square and at the bottom is paper lamination.

Actually paper lamination isn't on the list but I found some left over so I bonded it to some printed fabric.

And the next day I made 3 more.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

More textile explorations

At the October get together of the Art Textiles workshop I had a go at flour paste resist.  I've done it before but wanted it to have another go.

Normally I think you would use a darker colour to paint through the crackle but I wanted to stick with my colour scheme so used copper acrylic paint.  Plus I used already printed fabric so the contrast is not as strong as it might have been.

I love these serendiptous little trees.

Because all my collages to date had straight lines, Liske challenged me to do some curves.

I took the original collages with me to C2C to stitch in the evenings at the hotel.  That didn't happen.  I can see there's going to have to be a mammoth stitch session at some point.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice