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Archive for the ‘screenprinting’ Category

Rainbow Fish School

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Rainbowschool

At least that is my name for it. I should have made a new fish screen, but c’est la vie.

Part of this challenge was to do some subtle dimension. I put an extra layer of batting under 3 of the fish and stitched it with water soluble thread.

trapuntofish

Then I added the batting and backing and quilted it. A light sponging with water removed the trapunto sponges. It is very subtle, hardly noticeable.

I did some more playing around with printing on silk and adding the Colorhue dyes after the paint had dried. I want to make a scarf for an auction to help a young woman with breast cancer who has no health insurance. She is a friend of Clay, Lisa’s partner. When will this madness end. Health care should be a right not a privilege.

I ended up having to  call the Dr’s office today. I have been having pain in my upper abdomen. I  took ibuprofen for a week for the tooth ache and now I have gastric  inflammation so I am on a med to decrease the acid in my stomach so that it can heal. If it’s not one thing it’s another!

I’m Here

Monday, October 26th, 2009

fishbubblewrapdyeing

I had a hectic few days. I hosted the Oregon Fiberarts Critique Group on Saturday so there was the frenetic getting ready and providing coffee and treats when every one arrived on Saturday morning. Our guest critic, Alice, was our cathedral arts director until we ran out of funding for the position. She did a great job. I got a good kick in the butt. First of all, the only work I had was really safe work that I had done for the Twelve X Twelve group and them SDA member’s show.

Her biggest advice to me was to kick it up a notch and not be so safe. I had already begun to think about this. I really have had a problem getting something going in the studio so I think I just need to do the work and spend more time with perfecting some techniques. I need to go back to where I was before I did my solo show which took me off track.

Enough soul searching.

Right now, I am having fun whipping up a piece for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. The theme is an animal. I don’t really do animals. The most abstract one I could think of was a fish. I wanted to try a new technique with the Colorhue dyes which involves printing with Lumiere paints and then applying the dye. The pain acts as a resist.

For the background, I chose a lime green silk from my stash. I shose some paints from my collection.

fishpaintpalette

I then screen printed with a thermofax screen that I had made last year.

screenedfish

They were a little more purple than I wanted, but looked iridescent which was good.

Here is the fun part. You lay the silk on bubble wrap. Then paint it with water; that makes the silk adhere to the bubble wrap. Then I painted with 3 or 4 colors of the  Colorhue dyes. the result is what you see at the top of my post. It is still wet and needs to dry on the bubble wrap. I think I should have used the smaller bubble wrap, but it is still very fun.

I have to go finish getting our supper ready. We have to eat early and go to theology class tonight. I have a very wonderfully smelling slow cooker soup going. Chicken, black beans, corn, salsa, mushrooms, cumin. I am going to garnish it with sour cream and avocados.

Tuesday Trivia (Drivel)

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

I didn’t accomplish much on Sunday at the screen printing workshop. It was hot. I was tired. Here are the pieces that I did do and Saturday’s pieces after washing. Here are the bubbly scarves. I may have to cut up at least one of these for something else. All photos are clickable.

I used the same freezer paper screen for this deconstructed print. Most of the dye washed out. I used some that was sitting on the shelf, per Judilee’s suggestion. I still like it as a background for something.

Same problem with the deconstructed screen on organza. The last print I did was pretty good, I did that the second day and maybe my print paste had more soda ash.

On Sunday, I made a photo emulsion screen of a closeup of birch tree trunks from a photo that my daughter Lisa took. I did two different sizes. Here I have printed it on white cotton with dark gray and brown dye.

I also did the aspens with the same dyes.

I wanted to use Bordeaux dye on red silk for the pomegranates. I used it to print the trees on gold and it came out brown – I like it.

On the organza, it is winy in color, but pretty.

Here are the red silks with the Bordeaux. They are very subtle because the silk does not take a second or more dye like cotton can. It has fewer dye sites.

I came home early on Sunday night with the anticipation of going to Terry’s house to have dinner with Jane Davila, who was teaching at Sisters last week and in Portland, on her way home. I made a dessert of fresh peaches, vanilla ice cream, balsamic vinegar syrup and toasted almonds. We arrived at Terry’s to find out that Jane and her husband were not there as he was not feeling well and they were going to try to get an earlier flight home. I was disappointed, but happy that Terry had prepared a delicious meal which we enjoyed immensely. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal, by some one else. We sat on her lovely patio and enjoyed the evening.

Monday was a very busy day. We had to be downtown at the planning commission at 9 am for a hearing on the property across the street from us. It is a beautiful arts and crafts mansion that Reed College purchased and renovated as a home for their president. He didn’t want to live there, so they set it up to be a small conference center and overnight guest house. Wait a minute, we all said. This is a quiet residential lane. We can not have that kind of traffic on our street. If you would like to read more about it, there is an article in the Oregonian. We will not know until September whether we will win this one or not. I had to leave the hearing early to go over to Trinity and help the web gurus work on the new navigation layout for our updated website. that was fun!

In the afternoon, I had my annual oncology doctor’s visit – well it is supposed to be annual. I didn’t go last year because I consider myself cured!! I was pronounced fine and I promised to come back on time next year. Mr C was so sweet. While he was waiting for me, he was sitting across from a patient a little older than me, with cancer, and her 2 daughters, probably in their 50’s. He said they looked so old and tired and sad and when I came bounding out of the doctor’s office, I looked 39 years old to him. Wish I felt 39!!

Look at what our friends from Schenectady, NY, sent us!!!! Yum!!

I have probably mentioned that I grew up on a farm in upstate NY. My dad made maple syrup in the spring. One of my jobs was to can the syrup. When I was doing it, we had tin cans. I still have some. Of course they are empty. My dad used to joke that he sold his less desirable syrup to Vermont. I am a maple syrup snob, and so Bill and Joy were happy to indulge me with some real maple syrup.

Enough trivia drivel for today. i may have some nice bathroom photos for you tomorrow.

Today’s Prints

Friday, July 11th, 2008

I was so busy and having so much fun, that I forgot to take very many photos today. Judylee fixed my stained glass window screen and I got a couple of cool prints. Here is one of them. The other one is a darker han-dye. They look like day and night versions of the same window.

I also printed some pomegranates with black ink on red hand-dyes.

I made a torn masking tape screen and did quite a few different prints.

This fabric was done in the resist class 2 weeks ago.

Today, I used the torn masking tape screen and discharge paste and wow!, look at it now.

This yellow fabric was screened with discharge paste with turquoise dye added.

Tonight we watched Lars and the Real Girl. What a charming movie. I highly recommend it. I am off to bed. Two more days of screen printing.

I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. Wait a minute, resists were part of the last class!

I am having a great time. Today was day 2 of the Screen Printing Intensive. I didn’t have time to post yesterday. I had a meeting of the web site re-design committee at Trinity and then Mr C and I went out to dinner. I came home and worked on preparing some black and white images for photo emulsion screens that we made today.

Yesterday, we did freezer paper stencil screen printing. Here is my stencil in progress. Once it is cut, it is ironed to the screen.

I saved the inside pieces which I ironed to a screen today, but was not very successful so Judy, the instructor is going to help me repair it. The dye was seeping under the freezer paper.

Here are my prints that have been steamed and are waiting for the washout.

Yesterday, I also prepared a screen with photo emulsion. This has to be done quickly in a dark room. The screen is then put in a covered area to dry. Because I had a large screen, I did two images. One of aspen tree trunks and one of pomegranates. The images have to be black and white – no gray. They are then copied to acetate. Back in the dark room, the images are placed on a light table and the screen is quickly laid on top. The whole thing is weighted and covered. The lights are then turned on to expose the image – takes about 4 minutes.

Then, the images were carried in a box to the dye studio where the unexposed emulsion is washed off.

Here is the screen, after I had done my aspen prints.

Here the aspen prints on gray cotton and organza. The aspens are the white areas.

And, the pomegranates. Tomorrow, I am bringing in some red fabric so that I can print these with black or dark red dye.

I also had fun making a torn paper print. I did several offset prints in different colors. I love the layering that I got. I don’t know what it will look like when I wash it. To make the screen, I tear little rectangles in a sheet of newspaper and tape it to the screen. Once you start screening, it just stays plastered on the screen and you can use it over and over, but you can’t wash it so you have to deal with mixing colors of dye, which I love to do anyway.

The makeup of this class is very different from the last class. Reva and I and one other woman are the only really mature women in the class. The others could be my daughters. I really am enjoying them. I think they get a kick out of me and my warped sense of humor.

Tomorrow, we get to play with discharge paste. I am going to be happy again.