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Archive for the ‘Surface Design Techniques’ Category

Day Two With Wendy Huhn

Monday, October 15th, 2007

It was a very long, busy day. A lot of work today had to be done with a respirator on the roof of the building — three flights up. We ran up and worked between rain drops. Today there was a big todo around Portland as there was a simulated dirty bomb explosion and a test for firs responders. So there we were on the roof with our respirators and a police helicopter hovered over us, perhaps wondering what we were up to!!

Our first mission was to soak our gel transfer pieces and remove the paper. Here is one of mine soaked and ready to peel.

Using a sponge, you start removing the paper.

Here it is, rubbed and dried with my other gel transfers to fabric.

Clock wise from the upper right: a magazine image on white cotton, photocopies on white cotton, laser printed photo on dyed silk, paperless paper on silk organza.

You can also layer gel on images, letting it dry between layers and you end up with a kind on acrylic decal that can be glued and stitched to your work. Here are the decals that I made.

Clockwise, magazine photo, paperless paper, photocopy and paperless paper with tinted gel.

My favorite is this fluffy dandelion decal made from a laser photo print.

Today we worked with the chemicals, Xylene and Citrasolve, which actually contains xylene. These are the transfers I did with the xylene pen. The ginko leaves are on cotton and the other leaf is on silk organza.

I have worked with Citrasolve before, but never this way. We transferred color photos and magazine pictures to fabric.

The dandelion is a laser color print on silk charmeuse. The tropical fish is a magazine photo transferred to look like a colored pencil drawing. The other is from a sheet of copyright free work that Wendy gave us. I think they are color laser copies. It is on dyed silk.

This afternoon, we used her copy machine, named Pokey. We photocopied on to fabric. The top two are copied on to cotton.

These are copied to printed commercial fabric.

Mr C picked me up at 4:30 and we had an early dinner before going to EFM at Trinity. It has been a long day, and I need to print some transparencies to use tomorrow.

Making Progress

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

I finally got the big Epson printer to work. This printer takes 7 ink cartridges. When I print on fabric, I like to use the matte black instead of the photo black. Sometimes, the printer does not get the message that I have made a change and that I wanted to make a change. It will not recognize the new cartridge and keeps telling me that I have to change the settings, which I have already done. It finally worked and then I didn’t like the result and had to start over.

I can not show you the final journal quilt, which has to be 17 X 22 inches. But I will show you the parts! The theme is architectural grids – particularly, Seattle. I am using this discharged fabric and the other fabric is a painted fabric.

seattlegridfabric.jpg

I took a photo of the skyline of Seattle from the ferry which I played with in Photoshop and printed on fabric. The first print was too washed out so I printed it again on a tighter weave cotton and pumped up the color saturation.

seattleskyline.jpg

I had a photo of the space needle reflected in a high rise which I took on our trip last summer. I played with the color of this and printed it on organza.

spaceneedleorganza.jpg

Last summer when we were in Seattle, we toured the new library. I love the grids in the architecture and took some photos with plans to create some thermofax screens. Here is the original photo.

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I made a screen of this and I am not totally happy with it. Maybe because of my attempt to screen on copper mesh!

copperscreenprint.jpg

Well, that is all I can share with you. I had to take some time out today to run down to Trinity with some tablecloths and stuff to set up the Arts Commission tables for sampler Sunday, tomorrow. I might get a little bit of work time tomorrow, but I have a few things to finish for the Japanese Garden show. Then I have to get everything ready to take up to the Garden for set up on Monday morning. Then it is back home to get ready for our EFM group to come for a dinner get-together to kick off our fall season.

Today, I remembered to take my camera when I took Maggie for a walk. These were taken on the Reed College campus. This is an installation with large hot pin letters on the front lawn.

edificecomplex.jpg

This is the second time and the second place that I have seen this bunny — wonder what this is about?

reedbunny.jpg

Happiness is

Friday, August 31st, 2007
  • finding this on my walk yesterday.

constructionfence.jpg

I have been looking for my own piece of construction fence for improvisational screen printing. I had seen a lot of it around a new section of sidewalk and thought about asking the owner of the house for a piece when he was finished. Well, there it was, yesterday. They were dismantling it and I just asked for piece and it was mine!!

  • spending the afternoon with M & M. I served a lunch of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs and watermelon. We dined on the deck and I taught them to say al fresco, which they thought was quite amusing.

It was quite hot yesterday and the siblings are getting a little testy with each other after a summer of togetherness. I finally suggested setting up a little installation of their little things on the back slope of our yard. It was a miracle. They suddenly were cooperating and having a great time.

milohillside.jpg

miahillside.jpg

They also made some chalk drawings on my studio patio. Here is Mia’s self-portrait.

miachalk.jpg

Milo did these drawings of weapons. He is fascinated with knights and vikings and pirates.

milochalk.jpg

But, look, isn’t he just Mr Cute?

mrcute.jpg

Tomorrow Mr C and I are going to work the food pantry at Trinity in the morning and then go out to lunch and take in Art in the Pearl. I will try to remember my camera. Labor day week-end is always a special time for us. We were married on this week-end, 43 years ago. Our actual anniversary is the 5th. Mr C has made reservations at the Willows Lodge in Washington State wine country. We will drive up on Tuesday and come home on Thursday. I am a lucky lady!!

Its Raining, Its Pouring

Monday, August 20th, 2007

Yep, we had lots of rain in Portland, today. But I didn’t care. I have been making a mess in my studio and I produced another work using some of my art cloth from my summer classes. This one is titled Indigo Moons (what else).

I needed to make the piece a little larger than the dimensions of the art cloth that I started with. So I cut it and auditioned some fabric that would work in the insert as a background for more moons. Here are two that didn’t work for me. Clickable to see larger. The first one is the same fabric before the indigo treatment. The second is a piece of indigo cotton from my workshop.

moons2.jpg moons3.jpg

I decided that I needed more punch so I went with a more colorful fabric.

indigomoons.jpg

I like how the brighter colors are in the main piece in a very light value. This has a satin stitched edge.

I am so excited because I get to sleep in my own bed tonight. Mr C finished the painting. Now I am busy doing laundry and getting the guest areas ready for Mark and Jayme. They are down in the Sisters area camping with M & M and their parents. I think the rain stayed in the north so hopefully they have had a nice dry time. Everyone is coming back to Portland tomorrow. I have to plan a big family dinner for tomorrow night.

I just have to add that I love, love how the new paint looks in our bedroom. I need to get busy and get the new curtains made to finish it off. I am also looking for a new duvet cover to go with the new decor. I have one I bought at IKEA ages ago, and it looks pretty good.

Shibori Wrap-up

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

This morning I got my hair dyed and discharged. So now I have some summery highlights in my red hair. It took 2 and a half hours so I feel as if the day is passing me by.

I want to finish uploading and making notes about my shibori pieces as this will serve as my virtual notebook of my work.

Judileigh knew that I was having a carpal tunnel problem which made the arashi wraps very difficult for me. She suggested I try stitching a tube to fit over a pvc pipe. Here is a silk dupioni wrap that I did by pinning and marking. I brought it home and stitched it.

shiborisewnwrap.jpg

Here it is after dipping in dye:

shiborisewnafterdye.jpg

Here it is coming off the pipe:

shiboristitchedremoval.jpg

Here is part of Sunday’s work. I bought a yard of linen from the school fabric locker. It was a very lightweight and loosely woven linen. I did lots of different techniques so that I will have pieces to collage.

shiborisaturday.jpg

  1. On the left is this scarf (second photo down on the left) wrapped and dipped in indigo.
  2. Next is a piece of red orange dupioni silk folded and clamped with washers and dipped in indigo.
  3. Top of the third row is a piece of the linen. The lines were created by making folds and doing a running stitch along the folds. Then they are drawn up tightly and tied off for dyeing in indigo.
  4. On the left underneath is the heavily stitched piece from earlier in the week that I folded and clamped with circles, probably film container lids.
  5. On the right is another plaid shibori. I used the linen and made half inch vertical folds which I stitched and pressed. Then I did the same thing, horizontally. The fold cause a resist, making lighter areas. The stitching also leaves some lovely fine lines.
  6. Top of the next row is the linen which was folded and clamped with two canning jar lids held in place with rubber bands.
  7. Underneath is the linen that was folded and clamped with different circles.
  8. Top piece in the last row is the dupioni silk that was stitched into a tube to make an arashi wrap.
  9. Beneath are linen that was tie-dyed and folded and clamped with bag clamps. (I am on the look out for these. they are like large barrettes.)

Here are close-ups of some of these pieces.
siborisaturdaycloseup.jpg

shiboriscarfoverydye.jpg

Here are the remaining 3 pieces:

shiborisunday.jpg

  1. Top left is a piece of the linen on which I tried to use a piece of bamboo as a resist. I didn’t get the results that I want, but it is a nice organic looking piece of cloth.
  2. The bottom piece was a hand-dyed lime green which I tie-dyed around screws and then arashi wrapped on a pole.
  3. The final piece is the linen which I hand sewed around the pvc pipe for an arashi wrap. I love this piece. Here is a close-up:

shiborilinenwrapcloseup.jpg

My table mate Rita was obsessed with the triangle wrap which I tried on two pieces. She did it on silk first and got the mushy results that I got. She then used cotton and some very precise pressed folds and wrapping. Here is how it looked after coming off the pipe.

shiborifoldedtrianglewrap.jpg

Here it is after unwrapping. It is really gorgeous. Her tenacity paid off.

shiboritrianglereveal.jpg

It was interesting to watch all of the working styles. I was after lots of textures and fabrics to use in quilts. Some class members were very project orientated. Some just played and experimented with fabric with no intended use.