Lots of things in the works

Quite often, I tend to work on one project at a time... seems like it's more efficient and allows me to crank out things at a faster pace.  However, once I have done my last show for the year, with no shows coming up until the middle of next year, I like to spend time experimenting with new techniques, or trying new twists on old favorites.  So here are some shots of a few things I'm working on right now:

This is a lousy photo, but the best I could get... I have traced leaf shapes onto muslin in preparation for batiking them, then I will overdye with background colors.  After I batch the piece, I will wash out and hand paint the leaf shapes with dyes.  This is a variation on the normal method I use, and I decided it would be fun to see how it turns out this way.  I'll post more as I progress with this piece.

This is a 1/2 yard piece of muslin that I decided to try dyeing a little differently than I usually do.  I would normally pre-soda soak the fabric, scrunch it up and pour the dyes over, letting it batch for an hour before the rinse/launder step.  Today, I wanted to see what would happen if I put ice cubes over the scrunched and dyed piece, thinking that the ice cubes would serve to dilute the dyes as they slowly melted.  I see a little difference between this and regular scrunch dyeing, but not a whole lot.  No fear... I have several other ideas in mind that I plan to try over the coming months.  And in February, I plan to publish them on a blog where I am a Resident Artist... keep a look out!   

Here, I have created a basket weave on a dyed scarf using soy wax, and when my order comes, I plan to use Dy-Na-Flo to overdye the unwaxed area.  I have discovered that multiple dye baths don't work on silk like they do on cotton, so I am playing with fabric paints to see if I can get a good result without leaving the fabric stiff... more on this soon!

As you may have seen in recent posts, I'm also doing a lot of stamping with fabric paints and rubber stamps, and plan to do a lot more of that as soon as the Dy-Na-Flo arrives.  I'm probably going to need to order a lot more of that... poor planning on my part, but I didn't realize that the fabric paints available in today's market are far superior to any I tried 15-20 years ago!  Progress... anyway, I'll keep you posted on my progress!

More Stamp experiments

After playing with my French cursive stamp and fabric paint yesterday, I decided to take a trip to Michael's today to see if I could find a few more, plus some other supplies.  There are still good deals to be had out there at Michaels!  They were having a BOGOF sale on stamps, and I scored 4 really nice wood block stamps for a very reasonable price!  Also found a stencil to use on the t-shirt I referred to yesterday, although I'm having some difficulty finding Batik-EZ by Crafter's Pick.  It's supposed to be available at Michael's, but we have a small store, and they didn't have it.  So I got on the e-mail to Michael's and Crafter's Pick to see where I can get it.  Meanwhile, I decided to audition my new stamps, using some of the fabric paints I have on hand:

The picture above shows a Clock face and a fern... I have learned that not all stamps do well with fabric paint... it floods too easily, as the Clock face stamp did.  I think I will also need to get some metallic inks!  But I love the fern, both in metallic as well as regular fabric paints!

Above is the silk scrap from before, with fern and clock face added... love the fern!

Here is the fern and a post card stamp, using regular fabric paint which I smeared onto several layers of paper towel.  I ended up patting the paper towel over the post card stamp to get better coverage.

 Here's a closeup shot of the fern with black fabric paint... not too much!

And a closeup of the fern on silk with gold metallic paint.

The fern with gold metallic paint on the cotton sample I was working on yesterday.

Finally, a closeup of the post card stamp with black fabric paint.  Can't wait to get my Dyna-flo paints next week so I can give them a try!

Latest Round Robin piece

Last spring, I started a Round Robin with 6 other people, and we have been slowly circulating fabrics to each other and adding layers of color and pattern to each. Recently, I received a piece that challenged my imagination... I wasn't sure what to do to add to it, and I couldn't decide what color to add. It came to me with blues, greens, yellow and white(silver), and it "felt" cold to my eye. I studied it off and on while working on other projects, auditioning ideas for techniques, designs, colors, etc. Finally, it occurred to me that I needed to come up with something that would add warm tones to the piece. I discarded the idea of using dyes, because anything at this point that I could add would most likely muddy the piece. I decided to try Lumiere fabric paint, although I had never used it before. I still wasn't sure how I would apply it, and also wasn't sure which of two colors I would decide on. I ended up with Halo Pink Gold, because it added warmth, and at the last minute I created a 'squiggle' stencil, and used a foam brush to dab the paint thru the stencil. Here is the result:

I stencilled the squiggle in blank areas over the entire piece of fabric:

They don't show up well in this picture unless you click to see a larger image. I'm pleased because the Lumiere did what I wanted it to do, and it was easy to work with. I have learned a lot so far in this Round Robin!