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!

Stencils and masks

Remember the post I wrote here about stenciling? Well, I got a brainstorm the other night (I do some of my best thinking when I'm laying there, unable to sleep!). What if I masked off an area of fabric with freezer paper, then stenciled the area in between the masks? I'm sure this is not a new idea, but it just captured my imagination! So today, I decided to give it a try:

I drew a curved line across a piece of freezer paper, then cut it with my rotary cutter. I spread it out to create an opening for the stencil, then pressed it onto the fabric which I pre-soaked in soda ash solution and dried. I positioned the stencil over the left side of the fabric covering the opening between the pieces of freezer paper, then I daubed on thickened black dye with a foam brush. Once I reached the other end, I carefully lifted the stencil and wiped off the dye from both sides. Then I carefully laid it over the undyed portion of the exposed fabric, and repeated. Afterward I carefully lifted off the pieces of freezer paper. So now what? Truly, I have no idea... YET! I am totally in experimental stages with this technique, and I'm just letting myself play with it to see what I can achieve using stencils and dyes. The freezer mask was a brain-storm, and I think it is a good mix of the two techniques to create interesting fabric. More will be revealed...

Gel Glue resist experiments

I am working with my friend Wendy Wetzel to create a new Dye Divas class, and one of the things we want to demo is Gel Glue resist and painting with thickened dyes. I did one sampler, but forgot to cover it and batch, and the dyes did not bond with the cloth... bummer! So the next attempt, I made sure to cover with plastic for 24 hours after I finished applying the thickened dyes, and got much better results! Here is the sampler:

This is a fun method to create designs, and using thickened dyes instead of fabric paints leaves the fabric softer. So this can be used for clothing items as well as art pieces... something I really like! I just got a neat pattern for an unconstructed jacket, and I hope to do some with fabric I create using Gel Glue resist... I'll post pix if I get the jacket done!

Stamping experiments

Awhile back, I purchased a couple of Adire gourd stamps to use on fabrics.  Today, I finally got around to working on my first experiment using the stamps.  In the past, I always loaded stamps with a foam brush, but I decided to try a slightly different method today, thanks to an inspiration from Kim Barron's blog post on tjaps.  First off, I mixed 3 parts of Dharma Trading's Superclear with 1 part water.  I poured 2/3 of the mix into a separate container and set it aside to use with other colors.  With the remaining 1/3 mix, I added 1/2 Tbsp of Aqua Marine Procion MX dye powder.  I mixed thoroughly to dissolve the dye powder.  Next I needed to create a 'stamp pad'.  I got a scrap of  "Warm and Natural" cotton batting, folded it in half and trimmed to fit into a plastic Stouffer's frozen entree container, which I use for a lot of my craft projects.  I could probably have used felt for this purpose, but had some small pieces of the batting handy.

Next, I spooned some of the thickened dye mix onto the batting and spread around so it would be a large enough area to cover the stamp.  Then I loaded the stamp and applied to pre-soaked and dried cotton that I had pinned onto a padded work surface.

So far, I really like how the batting worked as a stamp pad, and I will probably use that method to try some of my other stamps as well as the adire ones.  Next, I will probably try the adires with a new discharge stamp pad I ordered from Dharma Trading, which should be here in a few days.  I may try some of my cheap hand-made stamps with the discharge pad first.  Then I'm thinking I might try using my old stand-by discharge solution - dishwashing gel with bleach - on a pad.  I will do some side-by side tests with the purchased discharge pad and the home remedy and post pix so you can see the results, probably next week.  Meanwhile, I'm getting kind of inspired to get my stamps out and play around with them... maybe make some new ones as well, now that I have this new method of loading them!

    

Rebar's the ticket!

I just unwrapped my fabric from the rebar and got good results so far! I decided to re-wrap and add to it, but here's a picture of the progress from this morning:
Meanwhile, I checked on my mud-dyeing experiment, but it didn't come out very well... either I don't have enough minerals to change the color or it hasn't stayed in the slurry long enough... anyway, I put it back in to 'batch' some more... will check back later on that.
While I was at it, I did some experiments with using leaves and thickened dyes to make impressions on fabric. Some worked well, others didn't, but then I rolled out another color over the fabrics, and that enhanced the images considerably. They are 'batching' now, so I will post pictures when they are rinsed out.

Nuts over netting

I was in the mood to play yesterday, and wanted to do some more experimenting with my net mesh... which used to be a vegetable bag before I tore into it. I went thru my stash and found a piece I dyed using leftovers... not really crazy for the color combination, so I figured "what the heck", might as well play with it! So first I stretched the netting over an area of the fabric, then used a roller to apply dishwashing gel with bleach over the netting. I removed the netting and let the area dry, then washed the gel out. I had been a little heavy-handed with the first try, and ended up with some areas where the netting design didn't show, and the color was mostly discharged leaving a pale area. I repeated the experiment, only this time I used very little gel on the roller, and got a better "print" of the netting design. Today, I soda soaked the fabric and let it dry. Then I stretched the netting over the two places I had discharged yesterday, only slightly altering the shape and direction of the netting. Then I lightly rolled over the area with thickened dye. Yup! That was the answer! I now have layers of netting over the piece, and I love the depth and shading! I'm letting it batch, but may go back and add more layers to the remaining fabric. What a rush! I'm finally beginning to feel like I have a better handle on 'complex cloth' than I ever have since I started experimenting with it!