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Archive for the ‘screenprinting’ Category

Will It Work?

Tuesday, September 24th, 2013

twopaintyscreens

 

If  you are willing to do something that might not work, you are closer to being an artist. — Seth Godin

 

When I saw that quote on Facebook, I thought, oh wow, that is me! I am always trying something and hoping it works.

 

This time, my target is this piece:

 

graffititarget

 

I entered it in the Simply Red show for High Fiber Diet. It did not make the cut. I put it up on my design wall so that I could stare at it and figure out what it needed. I decided it needed a focal point. I am not sure where I got the idea, but I thought perhaps I would do something crazy like screen some graffiti on it. It kind of resembles an architectural structure and so I thought graffiti might in a wild color might make it edgier and more interesting.

 

When Jane Dunnewold was here, I showed it to her. She agreed that it looked unfinished and she like my idea of the graffiti and felt a contrasting color would add some interest.

 

On the concrete retaining wall behind our neighbor’s home there is some graffiti which I have photographed.

 

puapgraffiti  laboygraffiti

 

I turned them into thermofax screens and did some test printing on some silk organza that I have been using to test printing for this piece.

 

graffitithermofax

 

Here are my results.

 

laboyprint

 

puapprint

 

I really want to use a lime green and the one I tested isn’t quite strong enough. Not sure which other color I will use, but I am going ahead with this.

 

Lisa is here, sleeping and getting some exercise and working on some illustrations in my office while she indulges in non-stop HGTV shows. Tomorrow, we are going to pick up Stephanie and drive over to Astoria for the day.

 

I was looking for wrapping for Judy’s hat, which I finished.

 

598544_10200931858677908_1000618833_n

 

I found one of my bags that I printed last year and used that and sent it off to her. She has already lost her lovely red hair.

 

artbag

 

Bring On Your Wrecking Ball

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

The highlight of my week was going to see The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, in the Wrecking Ball tour. What a wonderful experience. As our friend, Jer said, it was so uplifting to be among thousands of happy people, singing and dancing and just happy to be in the moment. We had great seats, right above the stage, left. We could watch all the action in the mosh pit and had a great view of Bruce and all the musicians. My ears were a bit overwhelmed, but I can still hear today!!

You can see Bruce with his guitar on the center right of this photo. He was so great with the mosh pit — inviting people on stage and taking requests. At times, it was like being at a revival meeting.

Back in the studio, I went to sleep on Tuesday night, knowing I was not happy with the foiling that I had done. I found some Wonder Under and took a big breath and foiled directly on the quilt. My original intention was to have a very impressionistic representations of the organ pipes and I had moved to a more literal interpretation. I am also doing some silver foiling on the pipes to represent how illuminated and reflective they are. I may have gone to far, we shall see.

On the organ case there is an engraving of these words: Cherubim and Seraphim Sing in Endless Praise  Holy Holy Holy. I wanted to include some of the words to anchor the piece. I had to scrounge up enough f the reddish brown fabric and piece it.

I made the largest thermofax screen I have ever made:

Here is the print. If you click on the photo, you can see it larger.

I have to finish all of the stitching tomorrow and do the finishing touches so that I can do the online registration on Saturday.

Here is the next to last yellow-orange 3 X 3. Then, I will finish off the year with yellow-green!! I have lots of that in my stash.

 

Zoom Zoom

Sunday, July 8th, 2012

This is a fairly large piece of cotton on which I got 5 prints from one of my large screens. I filled in the rest with cobalt blue so that I could use it in the deep sea piece. The chartreuse will be used, too. I will be cutting this up to reassemble as a kelp garden, I think.

I did a facing on the air/thermal piece and looked at it upside down and thought maybe I should orient it that way.

What do you think?

Here is today’s 3 x 3.

 

A Good Day for Dye Batching.

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

We are having temps in the high 80s so I decided it would be a good day to do some deconstructed screen printing. These are the first pulls that I got. I had used blue and yellow and green when I created the screen. I wanted to get some  prints that would look like water. These are a bit green for what I wanted.

I mixed up some cobalt blue to add to the prints.

That is more like it. I think I will use these in a deep blue sea piece. I want to have some kelp in it, so I dyed some chartreuse.

Kerr had these wonderful little mini t-pins for stretching and holding the fabric for printing.

I bought a half pound!! Certainly a life time supply for me. Here is a link, if you are interested.

Here is today’s 3 x 3.

Put a Face On It

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

On the second day of our Deconstructed Screen workshop, Kerr paired us off with another member of the class and we were give 2 minutes each to share some things about  ourselves. Then, we were told to do a portrait of the other person, actual or metaphorical.

Above, is the portrait done by Kathy of me. I quite like it!!

Kerr had demonstrated using a syringe with thickened dye to draw on fabric and screens. For our portraits, she wanted us to draw on a screen. Oops! I missed that instruction, and I drew directly on the hanky that Kerr gave us.

So, I pulled out one of my deconstructed screens and drew the portrait again. I did 2 prints. The first was printed on a teal shibori fabric.

I thought this was a bit muddled so I printed it again on white fabric.

I am wondering how they looked when they were washed out. Hope I get to see them. Needless to say, Kathy is the only one who got 3 portraits!!

I have had a busy day, still catching up on things on my to do list. Mr C is in Corvallis for the week so Scooter and I are keeping each other company. Here is my hand stitched 3 X 3 for the day:

Now, I am going to stitch a sleeve on my Mr C and Scooter quilt so that I can send it to SoCal for the Dinner at Eight exhibit at IQF Long Beach.