Thursday, June 13, 2013

Gelli-Art prints with thickened dyes

As promised, I did some experiments  with thickened dyes, using my new Gelli-Art plate.  The instructions caution that using dyes with the plate could stain it, but since I'm a dyer first, a printmaker second, I decided it was worth a try... I was not disappointed!  First a confession... I used some thickened dyes that have been stored away for between 6 months and a year, so I am not sure how well they will bond to the fabric... I will see how they wash out.  Their thickness ranged from almost runny to one that had the consistency of jellied cranberry sauce... quite a range!  Here's the story:
My work area set up... the fabric is muslin, pre-soaked in soda ash solution and dried.  Then I used a dry iron to press out the excess wrinkles.

Here is some of the dye I rolled out onto the plate with a brayer... notice how it kind of shrinks, leaving a natural pattern?  This didn't happen as much with the thicker dyes, but I did think it was interesting! 

This was really interesting, and I took a print from it... came out nice!
This is the back of the fabric as it lay on the plate.

Here, I used a texturizing tool to create a pattern.


My first two prints - the bottom is the print of the plate shown above.

I have placed a glob of the thickest dye on the plate here - I brayered it out, then texturized it below.


Here are the last 2 prints.... I like them a lot!  And as I said, the dyes did not stain the plate.  I cleaned it off with water and a little hand soap, then dried with paper towels, returning it to its original package.  My next step will be to mix some fresh dyes with the new Superclear thickener I just bought from Dharma Trading... I think I will get more consistent results thickness-wise, and hope the colors of the dyes will stay vibrant.  

Day 2 of printing with thickened dyes
I was going to mix some fresh dyes, but decided to continue with what I already had on hand:
Here's a shot of the plate after I spread some Robin's Egg blue dye over it.


Day 3's Green print  overprinted with the Robin's Egg blue


I cleaned the blue off the plate, and loaded with thickened Fuchsia, then brayered it... again, the dyes shrink back from the plate, leaving interesting patterns.  But I had wanted to use one of my stamps to create a design, so I attempted to stamp before covering with my fabric.

You can barely see the stamped design... 

This is one of the dark pieces I printed yesterday... now it has mostly fuchsia blended with it, but I really like how it looks!
Here, I used  golden yellow and fuchsia, leaving them side by side. 

I took another of my prints from the previous day and overprinted with the yellow-fuchsia combo...
Above is the back of the print, and below is the front.  



And finally, I over printed the last piece from the first day of dye printing, using fuchsia and the same texturizing tool to cross over the original print.
I wrapped the pieces in plastic, jelly-roll style, and batched for about 24 hours.  Here they are after I laundered them:
The Robin's egg blue came out quite a bit lighter, as did the green.  The other colors held up well, and I'm very pleased with the result.  I will definitely be using my Gelli-art plate with thickened dyes again in the future!

7 comments:

Cate Rose said...

Great results, Judy! So did the plate get stained? Hugs.

Judy Sall Fiber Art said...

Thanks, Connie! No, there was no staining from the dyes, which is great! I just washed with water and a little hand soap, dried with paper towels.

Judith said...

I am gonna have to try now!

Laura said...

How come you didn't cross-post on the Fire blog? I kept checking there to see any updates to the technique for the month, glad I decided to check your blog!

Judy Sall Fiber Art said...

Laura, I did post on Fire... click on the site's banner to take you to posts that relate to the subject. This month, we have 3 guest posters on the topic, so Judith set it up for anyone to respond by linking to their blogs.

Laura said...

I thought you would do a main post as one of the artists, that's what I kept looking for! The linky thing isn't showing anything for me, it's "stuck" or something, so no wonder I never saw your link there.

Kim Barron said...

That is really neat. I might have to try that myself.