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

Piecing with Leah

The thing about printing is that you are bound to have fabrics you like and fabrics you don't.  You can always use the fabrics you don't as the backing for a piece of work!

Leah uses what she calls 'bricks' in a lot of her work.  These are rectangles of fabric which she usually uses horizontally.  I love the look of her pieces but don't want my work to be a poor imitation of hers.  I did however want to try out the method.  As much of my Venice work is based on the architecture I thought I would piece these 3"x1" 'bricks vertically.  I spent a long time cutting up fabric.  I spent even longer - nearly 4 hours ironing the bondawebbed pieces to the backing fabric.

It is now ready to machine stitch.  I may handstitch on it too before stretching it on a canvas.

I also tried making log cabin squares.

I also made 3 pieces that were 'half squares'.  Being pedantic they are two-thirds squares!

I didn't always get the hang of the pattern so sometimes the intended middle square wasn't in the middle!  Ho hum!

I was very fortunate that my table was next to the design wall so could pin my squares up as I went along.

Once I had finished all the squares we played with the placing of them.  See if you can spot the difference!

Then I 'auditioned' narrow strips of the solid colour on the pieces before sewing it all together.

Once it was sewn together I bondawebbed the small strips to the fabric.

It's now got a backing fabric and acrylic felt wadding, ready to stitch.

I learned a lot during this 5 day workshop - and not just about screen printing and piecing.  I know that I am a fairly slapdash artist which is probably why I like mixed media.  I like slapping paint down on paper or fabric and taking as little time as possible over it once I have the idea.  But piecing 3"x1" strips is a slow process, as is stitching log cabin squares.  But with Leah's constant support and encouragement I was able to stick with it and achieve the makings of two really good pieces.  I am hoping to continue to apply myself more effort to my work now that I've seen what results I can achieve.

I thoroughly recommend taking course with Leah.  And if you can't make to Urban Studio North you can always buy the book.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Print, Stitch, Go! with Leah Higgins

The last of the workshops I had booked for this year was Print, Stitch, Go! at Leah Higgin's Urban Studio North. 

Leah suggested we choose 2 colours and work with a dark, medium and light version of each.  I chose Rust Brown and Black.  The Kemtex Black is quite blue.  I worked with Rust Brown last time I was at Leah's and didn't want my fabrics to be as dark this time.  Leah had mixed the dye powder with print paste already.  She suggested I then mixed my dark pot of black as 25% colour with 75% print paste, and the dark pot of rust brown as 50% colour with 50% print paste.  The medium is mixed as 1 part dark to 4 parts print paste, and the light is 1 part medium to 4 parts print paste.

We spent most of the first two days screen printing either with thermofax screens (as below) or with various methods of screen printing.

I used paper dots and bits of paper doily on my screens when I overprinted the fabric above.  I don't like the doily print but the fabrics were being made to cut up so not to worry!

It looked very dark when wet but when it was washed the next day it was much paler.

I printed this fabric with one of Leah's thermofax screens.

Then I made a masking tape screen and overprinted.

This was taken whilst it was still wet.

We only had time to make one breakdown screen and as I loved the arches fabric I made last time I decided I would use that technique.  As my theme for my fabrics was Venice (what a surprise!) I thought this would be sufficiently architectural.

I love what happens when you print it.

I used up the screen on another piece of fabric and then overprinted.

I also tried putting a commercial stencil under my screen and printed with that.

Here's a different stencil printed with the dark colours.  I had mostly been using medium and light on the other fabrics.

I also printed with my own thermofax screens.

Lastly on the second day we exchange dyed fat quarters in plastic bags to match our printed fabrics.  I had 8 pieces so I dyed six of them using the half rust and quarter black colours.

I used half strength magenta with a 'smidge' of black and half strength turquoise with a 'smidge' of black to get some accent colours.

On the middle day of the 5 day workshop we washed out all our fabrics and changed the studio over from a wet space to a dry space.  Then we talked about what we were going to do with our fabrics.

But that's another post!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Art Cloth Day 2 part 2

Earlier in the week I showed you what I had been doing on the Art Cloth workshop.  We had a really busy day.  So far I have shown you the breakdown printing and the masking tape printing.

We moved on to using soya wax.  I didn't get on with it at all.  I suspect it's a technique you really need to practise.

Then we moved on to making stencils and masks from newspaper.   I made a spiral.  I used brown thickened dye to print through the paper stencil.  I used blue which turned green because I didn't wait for the brown spirals to dry when using the mask.

At home I decided I would tray dye this fabric to get rid of the white.

I mixed Old Gold in one pot and Merlot (dye powder not the wine) in the other.

And poured it on.  At this point I was not particularly hopeful because I hadn't really followed the instructions for dyeing.

I left it soaking for several hours before rinsing and drying.  Here's both sides of the fabric.

I don't like it much but then I often don't.  Next time I'll print on it with acrylic or fabric paint and the time after we're trying out Formosul so maybe I'll be able to calm the colour down a bit.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice