Asilomar Conference

Oh, what fun we had!! My friend Lorraine and I went to Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Ca for the Empty Spools seminar last week. WoW!! I had class with Gloria Loughman from Australia, I love her work and have all her books. It was a 5 day class on painted landscapes. We made a sample from her pattern which I'll put at the end of the post. Then we painted sky fabric, mine is dull blue, gray, white, for a moody Oregon seascape. Many of the student works were beautiful sunsets, with bright colors. Cutting the fabric into various widths, from 3/4" to 2". we then rearranged them to get a blend of colors. We could do them vertical, horizontal or diagonal. I chose diagonal to give it a rainy coastal feel.

The water is painted in a darker, more intense color, I added some green to the ocean, and painted the fabric dry instead of wet. I wanted it more streaky, not as blended. My design is from a photo I took from the South Jetty beach at Bandon, Oregon. The rock formations are very distinctive to me, and brings back many good memories of trips with my husband. The second photos of the trees on the rocks is from Bastendorf beach, I added a few trees to my design, but haven't made them yet. I worked hard on the sketch, especially the "pointy" middle rock. Trying to make it skinnier, shorter, chunks out of the side, anything to make it look less phallic. I finally decided to make it gray and hope it would fade into the background more. ha ha ha.

Gloria's technique adds a black edge to each section of rock, put together with Steam a Seam 2, then on black fabric and trimmed to 1/8". I did NOT like the Steam a Seam, it is too sticky, and thick, two layers was ok to stitch through, but more, like the rocks, and my needle gummed up, and my thread broke. I need a stronger thread too. It also gummed up our scissors and rotary cutters, and my needle threader on the sewing machine is screwed up too.

So far, so good, I added some sand fabrics and some cheesecloth at the bottom. I have more stitching to do on the cheesecloth and more to add at the bottom edge of all the rocks. Also some waves splashing up. The bits of white will add a much needed brightness to the design. I've also started adding some trees to the top left rocks and a single stunted tree on the big rock in the water. I can't wait to get this finished.

My practice piece with a fat quarter of Gloria's hand dyed fabric, we picked the piece from a brown paper bag, so could not choose the colors we liked. The ocean area is a bit of green hand dyed shibori fabric I brought with me.

I made a second piece while I waited for people to catch up. I thought I would do my Bandon seascape with a horizontal background, so wanted to play with that orientation. I will add a larger rock to the bottom right and some sailboats to the water.

This pic is all the student practice pieces, while we learned her technique. Notice the horizontal, vertical and diagonals. Also, the man in class had to be different and added a palm tree to his, he was from Hawaii.

My friend made this beetle in Susan Carlson's class. I will not post anymore student work, as many people were picky about people taking pics of their work. We had a fabulous time. The beach was beautiful, the food great, and we toured all the class rooms at the end of the week. Seeing all the fabulous work was fascinating, and being able to talk to all the teachers. I will definitely use this technique again, it adds a lot of interest to what could be a boring piece of blue sky.

The wildflowers on the dunes were in full bloom. I will be linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Misty Morning Mauve

Another botanical Gelli Plate print, has been finished into a small wall hanging. I added layers of paint with stencils, sequin waste, and raw edge applique. The border fabric was one piece that graduated from pink to dark burgundy, when it was cut in squares, and rearranged it made a nice blended combination of fabrics. I really like the wispy, calm feel to these prints, they are very delicate. The addition of thread painted dragonflies, gives them a focus. See previous posts on the painting, printing & stencils for this technique. I've posted this on Nina Marie's Off The Wall Friday Click Here to Check out all these wonderfully creative people!

Slightly Breezy

The full title of this piece is "Slightly Breezy with a Chance of Dragonflies." I made it from two 8" x 10" Gelli plate prints, sewn side by side. It is over printed with stencils in darker green and detailed with sequin waste, and a hexagon print, also metallic gold paint. I have added three 3-D thread painted dragonflies, with loose wings, only the bodies sewn down. It is for the new Fyber Cafe challenge, "Weather Report."

I did not do any quilting in the background, as I would usually do, this left the stems and other details to show up better. The border is a Bali batik. I can't wait to quilt the other layered botanical prints that I made.

Layered Botanical Prints

Several more of the botanical Gelli Plate prints have been layered with stencils and acrylic paint. These 3 have a darker color paint for the stencil, but when I add background detail I tried to add a white and a dark. Then I added just a bit of another color for an accent. The sequin waste, I paint with a very dry stiff brush, for subtle color. I made a piece of template plastic, with one hole punch, so I can place a single small dot precisely placed. I also have a favorite tool, a silicon hot pad with a hexagon pattern on it, very flexible and rubbery, it makes great delicate texture. I just brush on a small bit of paint, and print with it.

A close up of the light teal print. It has several subtle shades, and textures.

The blue print on the left, has the same blue, painted stencils, as the ghost print on the right. My Ultramarine blue faded to turquoise with the addition of white, I also used a silver metallic paint on the two blue prints. I also cut a small dragonfly stencil about 1" across. Now I can't wait to free motion quilt them, and thread paint some 3-D dragonflies! How to thread paint a dragonfly

Play Day with Paints

My friend Peggy and I had another play day at my house last week, I needed a break from taking care of my husband after surgery. I did not realize how stressed out I was, until we were back from the hospital. So just to have some fun, and not be too serious for a while, we played with acrylic paints and stencils and foam stamps. I also invited my neighbor Betsy over to play, she is very crafty and had the day off of work. We started by painting in a light multi color background, and then using the foam stamps to print large images onto the wet fabric, in a darker contrasting color(s).

Betsy made hers with a light green background and large blue dragonfly images, she added orange leaves to fill it in. We were too busy playing for me to take photographs :( Peggy did a lot of just painting a set of sky/sunset fabrics and other pieces. Next I made a ghost print from the left over paint on my plastic wrap, and started adding small areas of sequin waste stenciling in different medium colors, I also printed in rug grid, I filled the whole background and it was colorful, but a little too busy. So I used a large rose stencil and mauve paints, I added purple to the outside edge of the petals. Next I made one with pink and red edges, and orange and rust edges, the acrylic paints were opaque enough to go over the printed dots from the sequin waste. Next I added green leaves around the trio of roses, with my hand carved linoleum block. The leaves came out very well, the veins I had carved in came out very crisp in the printing.

I really liked the roses just the way they are, so I machine free motion quilted them in rayon threads, to match the roses. The background got quilted in a small stipple around the dots with an off white cotton thread that blends into the background, and adds texture without adding color. It is a small 11" x 16" wall hanging, but it is just sweet, I call it "Fiesta Roses." Another piece of fabric I painted was a stencil of maple leaf veins with blue/purple paints put on with a small foam rubber roller. I added a lot of texture with a rubber gripper pad and silver metallic paints.

It was a lot of fun to spend a few hours just playing around with friends, I highly recommend finding the time to do it.

Painting Layers

The "Gelli" prints from the garden tour were not finished, they needed more layers of paint and depth. I took 6 of the pieces of fern prints and added more stamped prints of ferns in a darker green, metallic gold sponged over sequin waste, a clear wash of yellow to get rid of the "off white" muslin, and a dark green fine line hexagon pattern from a silicone hot pad. All of this painting added depth and more detail to the fabric, although one piece got to be a muddy mush of greens. The before and after pictures are quiet different in tone. I hope the photos show this difference. I did not play with the ones in purple yet.

Play Day Too

Peggy came over for another play day, my "Gelli Plate" did not arrive in the mail on time, they emailed it was shipped on Monday, maybe I'll get it today. So we just played around painting more fabric with different items. We used Versatex Fabric paints this time, to see if they are any less stiff when finished. I did add fabric medium, when I wanted a thinner paint. I used four different items to paint with, a ladybug bubble wand, and a Celtic suncatcher from the Dollar Store, and some rug grid, and a leaf stencil. The ladybug had lots of circles within circles and created a very abstract pattern when overlapped, I also have a bee pattern. The plastic suncatcher was the best tool, it had enough relief to make a great rubbing with Shiva Oil Pastels, and also under the fabric, to run a paint roller over it. I bought several to share with people in the art group. The rug grid is 1/4" + woven canvas, and makes a great all over pattern, I can't wait to try it on the "Gelli Plate." I ran out of hand dyed fabric to paint over, so I just added fabric medium to a roller brush that all ready had paint on it, and rolled it all over a piece of damp muslin. I created a yellow/green blotchy background, then added dark green and rolled over a leaf stencil. The damp fabric really worked well with the paint roller, the roller was already saturated with paint, and the dampness pulled it out of the brush, with out constantly adding paint, like I had been. Peggy continued to print with her "Collagegraph" of birds, and leaves. I forgot to take pics while we were working. I think I will still add some Shiva Oil pastels to a few of the pieces to finish them off, they NEED shimmer, or maybe I just am addicted to shimmer!
Photos - 1. Leaf stencil, 2. Rug Grid, 3. Ladybug Bubble Wand, 4. Celtic Sun Catcher.

Play Day II

Peggy came over a second time, so we could print fabric, with the printing plates that we made. We started with an already dyed piece of fabric. I used a peachy/orange fabric and used the bird plate with dark blue paint, The opposites on the color wheel would give good contrast. Instead of putting paint on the roller and going over the fabric with the plate underneath, I used the roller to apply paint to the plate, and laid the fabric over it. I used the hard rubber brayer to press a good print, and it came out very sharp and clear, but reversed. The blue paint on orange fabric kinda sucked the color out of the blue, it was a bit dull/brownish, but I went over and added touches of the blue paint. I also dipped a bamboo skewer in metallic gold paint, and added long marks to the lines of the print, gold paint on rug grid was dabbed on as wings to the birds. It still looked a little dull, so I splattered some bright yellow specks overall. It looks very much "Folk Art" and 2 people said it looks like Egyptian Hieroglyphics. It is not really "My Thing" but I like the results, crisp clear printing, directional, and with contrast. The second piece I did was on a light green dyed background, with touches of yellow and turquoise. I used the rubbing plates of the leaves, that I had made with the wood filler from the stencils. I wet the fabric, and put wet paint on the foam roller, I rolled over the fabric on top of the plates. It gave a much softer/blended look, and I added green. I also printed in a darker green on top of the fabric, this was clear and crisp and added a definite pattern. Next was a layer of metallic gold leaf printing, and it still needed more, so a layer of turquoise Shiva Oil Pastel was rubbed on over the leaves. So I learned if you want subtle blending of your print use the paint wet with a foam roller, a hard crisp line is made when you put the plate underneath the fabric, with the paint directly on the plate. Layer-Layer-Layer! The more complex the fabric, and the more depth it has, the more interesting the fabric. Use subtle shifts in color, add a different color paint each time you print, and finish off with some shimmer, either metallic acrylic or the Shiva Oils. Peggy added birds and leaves to a dyed fabric that she had already stenciled. She added sunflowers and then edged the printed curly cues with gold Shiva Oils. She was still going to add other elements to the fabric, and either collage or applique on additional layers. She was also trying for more "Layers" to make her fabric interesting. I did one last piece with the alphabet again, it was printed on a dark purple and gold dyed fabric, it was a rich dark color, but I couldn't see myself using it. I added purple acrylic to the gold areas, and metallic gold paint to the purple areas. Also layers of metallic gold Shiva oils, and a bright frosted purple Shiva. It is a very complex piece of fabric, I don't think the richness of the colors photographed very well.

Play Day

Thursday I had a "play day" with Peggy and Kay, I invited them over to paint, quilt, whatever. We started out with a watercolor collage that Peggy was working on, and kept getting out supplies, and books. We passed around Artists trading cards, and planned to paint some background papers/fabrics. We ended up doing a "Collagegraph" technique. We glued different elements to a base of mat board, to make a printing plate, I am going to demo it at our next textile group meeting. It can also be used as a rubbing plate for Shiva Oil Sticks. We used flat toothpicks, string, corrugated cardboard, rug grid, and foam sheets to cut out shapes. We painted everything with a base coat of acrylic paint to seal it. Next week Peggy is coming over and we are going to print with the boards we made. We also made rubbing plates with a "wood fiber" filler from "Elmer's Glue" We smeared the filler through plastic stencils, up to about an 1/8 inch depth, then pulled up the stencils, to leave a raised area. Later it was sanded smooth, and sealed with paint. I made one fabric print last week, with a print plate with stick on letters. I used a foam roller and acrylic paint to print onto a piece of hand dyed fabric I already had. It was difficult to gauge the wetness and coverage of the paint on the roller, too wet and it bled, too dry and it wouldn't print. I also tried a solid rubber brayer, but it wouldn't hold much paint. I love the fabric that I got, it was layers of black, dark green and lighter green alphabets, onto a dark navy green dyed fabric. I used the plate to rub on teal frosted Shiva Oil Pastel also, and it added a depth and shimmer to the whole piece. I don't think it photographed very well, but I loved the results.