Before and Afters

 I've been doing a lot of marbling, getting ready to work on a series for an exhibit coming up. I was mainly interested in marbling on top of Stonehenge fabric by Northcutt but while I had all the solution, decided to get out some of my "not so great" pieces - to re-marble over them.

So most of these are the before (on left) and afters on right. I always use a printed or colored piece of fabric. I do a lot of "veining" when I marble allowing much of the original fabric to show through. The one on top was already busy but I do like the additional marbling on top.

This one was marbled (on left) over a hand dyed fabric - pretty but wanted to try more so I soaked it in alum again and over-marbled it with blue veining. 

This is one of the Stonehenge fabrics which I wanted to add a little more interest to. I think it needs to be marbled again. I was most excited about the grays, but they turned out to be my least favorite when completed.

The piece on the left had been marbled years ago, pretty but a little boring. I marbled over it with a dark blue or black to create more interest; I like it better now.

These are some trees I did with silk screens at one of our FJ meetings and decided to try some marbling over it done in grays and blues.

This piece of fabric was an old piece I had "shiboried" and decided it needed something else. I did some very light veining over the top.

I never cared for this piece which was shiboried with wall plates soooooo I marbled on top; I'm still not crazy about it. Well you can't win them all....right !

These are the pieces I was most interested in - the Stonehenge. You can see in the top left picture, the patterning as it lay on the marbling base. I used Createx air brush colors in metallic gold and black. I never use black straight. I always mix it with something like dark blue or brown to soften it a tad. I was happy with the results.

Thes next 4 pieces are Stonehenge which were marbled with the patterning on the left. I am happy with the results, especially the dark blue. As I work with this fabric new ideas come to mind like adding a pop of color using a paint stick, stitching with metallic thread etc. I've done several and will share next time around.

Marbling and Wooden Hands

In preparing for Fiber Day last week, I always make lots of extra methyl - marbling base, as it seems to go down quickly as each print removes a little more. I want to have plenty in reserve so I don't have to stop and make some...especially when eager children are waiting for their turn.

As it turned out, I had 3 extra gallons, was thinking ahead and brought containers with lids so I could bring the extra home. It doesn't always last that long (several days) before it breaks down and is un-useable, but when new and sealed, it was wonderful even after a week.

 I am working on a series for an upcoming exhibit and thought it might be fun to marble on top of Stonehenge fabric - my favorite fabric. I never have any trouble cutting into my stash but in this case...once this is gone...it's gone so I approached this very carefully. I decided the fabric (to be used as a rock backdrop) could use more veining so I did very little marbling on each.

 This is the only piece of Stonehenge I added color to, not sure I like it . I started with 3 colors dropped in the tray.

 Using a new favorite technique - that of Flow Release by Golden (30 drops to 1 cup of water) which was dropped on using a whisk allowing the paint to separate into an interesting pattern.

 Here is the finished piece which I like but I've lost the beautiful patterning of the Stonehenge fabric.

 Here is a more recent Stonehenge which I marbled using the same orangey color

 It's more obvious in person.

 This Stonehenge I used just the black, white and gray...

 dropped

 treated with flow release

 and printed on top. This is more the look I was shooting for.

 And this next one

 you can see the clear marbling base and the little bit of paint I use...

 just to give a little more surface texture.

 I also went through my stash of marbled fabrics and pulled those I wasn't happy with. This was already a mish-mosh so I figured I had nothing to lose.

 Maybe a little more interesting now? The jury is still out on this one but it does remind me of being tangled in brush and looking through to an open sunny area.

 This was multi colored hand dyed, pretty but needed something..

 and I think this one was perked up a bit.

 Handling bigger pieces can be a challenge as you have to drop the center first and gently lower the sides. If the piece is too wide, this is almost impossible. Years ago, my husband being at work and not available to help, I had to come up with a way to do this. I call these my wooden hands.

The fabric is held with clothespins onto thin strips of wood. I can hold the ends and gently lower it down. Once down, the strips of wood lie on the edge of the pan (as they are longer) and I can unclip the clothespins and allow the last bit of fabric to fall on the surface.
It's been great fun....I have a paint order in; some of my newer colors include metallics (Createx air brush colors) which I've used with success before. I'm hoping to add more veining in gold or copper to give the effect of mica or another ore running through it.  We'll see what happens and will keep you posted. I'm hoping my order comes today so I have the weekend to play.

Happy Memorial Day  - have a wonderful relaxing and fun weekend...and give a big hug to your favorite soldier/s. They are so deserving of our thanks, our love and our praise...

Un-named but Finished!

I'm finishing up old pieces - samples I made years ago. This sample was done for a book I wrote on fabric marbling;  I've always liked it but had no use for it as it was, I thought quilting would make it pop and perhaps turn it into a pillow or small wallhanging.

 This is a whole cloth piece. I cut leaf shapes out of contact paper and laid them down on white silk before marbling. Marbling is a quick process so I was able to print it and remove the contact shapes before they loosened and fell off naturally. I then went back with silk paint to fill in the white leaf shape areas. It was a tedious process but I like the results.

 I wanted to make the leaves pop from the background; laying an extra layer of batting underneath the leaf area will do this.

 I also take advantage of being able to use up half filled bobbins in thread colors I can't use. I made sure my bobbin tension was spot on so no weird color thread appeared on the front.

 The quilting was free motion following the lines of the marbled pattern.

 The leaves were outlined with a rayon decorative thread; the veining done with the same color thread.

I used stretcher bars to frame the piece.

And the finished piece still waiting for a name. The leaves look to be floating so I think that might be a possibility.

Sh'rooms

Morning walks can be a great source of inspiration for me. One of the neighborhoods I walk in, is an older community - lots of trees, bordering on forests. The houses are probably quite dark inside as a result, but the feeling outside walking is wonderful. I think my love of forests and woods is right up there next to trees. 

There's always interesting things to see but when I come upon mushrooms, I feel like I've hit the jackpot. There weren't too many on this particular morning but enough to make me happy - look at this big beauty...

and another with a part of the cap broken away, making it a more interesting shape.

Some smaller ones withe some wonderful caps....

and  splits.

The underneath is so delicate but beautiful for printing as well as deconstructive screen printing which was my goal for the day.

I sliced the mushrooms very thin to @ 1/4" thick making them easy to work with for screening. The long stems on the larger mushroom were really interesting; I was able to get 5 cuts from it.

This is the underneath of the cap of the largest mushroom.  I love this and am thinking maybe I could turn this image into a silk screen.

I combined parts of different mushrooms;  even though they didn't look like a traditional mushroom, I'm interested in the overall effect, which I think I'll like.

I prepared quite a few screens that day, this is only half of them. And there they sat and sat as life got in the way.

Well, week 2 and here I am, finally getting to print off my screens which is always exciting as you never know what you're gonna get.

I used colors I had mixed up some time before as I was too anxious and wanted to get right to it. They were also colors I like working in - think they were blue-grey, stormy sky and blue-green. I also had a little seafoam green left, now discontinued so this was the last of it. The above are the wet dyes screened onto soda ash treated fabric and waiting to be covered and batched. I'm loving the stems.

I prepared a very large piece of pfd mercerized broadcloth cotton so I could keep on printing and printing, luckily I have a large table to handle the size. After washing, you can see how subtle the colors are. The stormy grey is the darkest, the blue greens are in the middle and have a greenish cast and the blue greys are across the top. I like the color palette,  I've always liked the more neutral and subtle colors.

Here are some detail shots. I know, hard to find the mushrooms in many instances but I do like the patterning they produced.

The stems came through great. I tried to overlap the prints as I was screening so I would have a more continuous piece of cloth, some places I succeeded and some not.

The bigger prints are 2 of my favorites as you can see the detail on the mushrooms.

The seafoam is along the bottom.

This is another favorite - the smaller caps and stems which are very recognizable.

This was the underneath side which is shown at the beginning, not as effective in the deconstructive screen printing. It's probably better to use it to print with like below.

And a piece of organza with deconstructive screen printing and placed over the fabric directly above it. I love the sheers for layering and always try to include some when I'm printing. Now what to do with it. I do have some ideas churning and hope they play out the way I picture them.