The other day when I went to the mailbox look what I found inside:
This gorgeous marbled silk scarf made by my good friend Sandy. I absolutely love it!
and more kitchen foil stuff, this time in the form of postcards instead of books:
and lastly I decided it was time for a new sketchbook:
And speaking of bookmaking... my new online Creative Book Making class starts next week!
The Creative Edge
exercises to celebrate your creative self
ISBN 978-1600611117
As you all know I am not a painter but I found that all of the exercises and techniques in this book are easily adaptable to working on cloth instead of wrapped canvas. I haven't put this book down since I got it and it's really pushing me to do more experimenting with different types of mediums and tools for applying color to cloth. It's a spiral bound book so it lays flat when opened and it's filled with page after page of beautiful photos of the processes and the finished works. If you're looking for a way to jump start your creative muse buy this book, you won't be dissapointed. As a matter of fact the other day I went and grabbed some canvas fabric, all my Goldens fluid acrylic paints and painted up a few surfaces to work with.
All of these are painted with the Golden's Fluid Acrylics. The first two above are just as I've painted them but these next two I wasn't entirely thrilled with because the colors were a bit too much. So I left them to dry and then I threw them in the washer and dryer hoping to wash out some of the color.
There wasn't as much color loss at all which actually surprised me since I was working with an acrylic paint and I didn't bother to do any type of heat setting to it before I washed them. Now that I know this I'll be less hesitant to use these paints on a fabric that I know I will wash because the paints didn't effect the hand of the cloth at all and I think that if I had let the fabric cure for several days first and then applied some heat I may not have had even as much as I did. Of course I've only washed these once so it will be interesting to see what happens the next time they go through the wash/dry cycle.
The next step for these fabrics is to apply some imagery with either silkscreens or some other method...
I've been experimenting with some new book surface techniques over the last week. This first one is turning out to be my favorite:
This is a very easy technique to do and I learned from an article by Miriam Forder in issue 5 of Fibre&Stitch. All you need for this is some kitchen foil and ink and I love the results. I used a black ink on these but I've ordered some other colors to experiment with. Here's a closeup that shows the texture a little better:
Both of these will get turned into books using a coptic binding. I'll post photos of the finished books in a few days.
And if you haven't signed up for the Two Creative Studios newsletter yet, there's still time to get in on the big giveaway that Terri and I are having. Here's a look at what we're giving away:
Lot's of hand dyed fabrics, a book made with Amate bark paper and a giclee art print by Terri! Get all the details on the giveaway here.
"imagine" created with Timtex, foiling, Mistyfuse, grungeboard letters and paint. It has a wonderfully iridescent surface due to an underlayer of foiling on the timtex surface that was applied before painting. It is 5”x7” and ready for matting and framing. "imagine" is my donation for the Hearts for Anna" fund raiser to help raise money for Anna Millea's medical bills. She is fighting an aggressive reoccurrence of breast cancer and has no insurance, having been deemed uninsurable due to her "pre-existing condition." When the people at Artful Home learned of this they came up with a terrific idea to raise money to help Anna pay for her medical bills.
Artful Home will hold a 5-day online event, Hearts for Anna August 12-16, 2009 in which miniature artworks, no larger than 5" x 7", will be sold. The items will be sold first-come, first serve, with all items selling for $100 on Day 1, $75 on Days 2 - 4, and $50 on Day 5. All money will go to a fund that goes directly to Anna Millea to help pay for her medical bills. All the details on this event can be found here.Some recent soy wax batik results:
A silk scarf:
and another one:
and a couple pieces of cotton:
and for these pieces I was experimenting with getting a crackled look:
and since I had the dye out I decided to dye myself a silk velvet scarf in one of my favorite colors:
On Friday of last week I took all the newsprint that I used to iron the wax off the fabrics I had batik'd over the last several weeks out on the deck and painted them all using some Dye-Na-Flow paint:
I had a huge stack to work with. I've been using some plain newsprint that I bought from Blick Art Materials to iron the wax off my fabrics. I got some really wonderful results adding paint to the waxed papers:
These three are just a few favorite from the pile. So now I've got a huge stash of papers that I can use for book making and things.
So I was sitting on the deck on Saturday enjoying the nice weather trying to decide what to work on and I remembered that months ago I had bought the book Paper and Metal Leaf Lamination by Jane Dunnewold, Clair Benn and Leslie Morgan. I had read about their technique of laminating paper to fabric that I had put on my "I've got to try that" list but never got around to it so I decided to give it a try using the newsprint that I had just painted. Oooh boy did I have fun with this technique and I'm very happy with the results that I got:
Without going into specific details on the technique, for that I recommend you purchase their book which is fantastic by the way. Actually I have all their books and they're all really well done. Clear easy to follow instructions along with great photos and examples. Anyway, using a matte medium and a silk screen the paper is bonded to the fabric, dried and then the paper is washed away leaving an image on the fabric. The resulting fabric has a relatively soft hand making it easy for machine and hand stitching.
I love this next one, it has a lot of texture to it and the color variations make it look old and weathered. I think it will benefit from some additional surface embellishment- maybe some text or...?
If you click to enlarge it you can get a better look at the surface texture.
Where you see white in the pieces is where the paper didn't completely bond so it reveals the underlying fabric. If you hold these pieces up to light they look really fabulous as they are somewhat transparent. I've photographed them on a cream background so that the grid from my worktable doesn't show through them in the photos.
These are just a few samples, I've made several more pieces before I ran out of supplies. Suffice it to say I am fascinated with this technique and plan to do some more experimenting just as soon as my order for more matte medium arrives!
Another soy wax batik project I finished up this morning:
This is a silk scarf I used a tjanting to apply the wax and then painted it with Dye-na-flow paints. And as promised in a previous blog post, you'll find a "getting started with soy wax batik" free project sheet on the Two Creative Studios website here!
And now for the even bigger news - Terri and I are doing a summer giveaway! Here's the details:
We're celebrating the long awaited arrival of summer with a huge giveaway! Anyone who is signed up for the Two Creative Studios newsletter is automatically entered, but you can increase your chances of winning by:
Doing a blog post: If you do a blog post about the giveaway with a link to the Two Creative Studios newsletter sign up page here your name gets put in 2 extra times! You must email either me or Terri to let us know when the post is up. Please provide a link to your blog post in the email.
Post a link: If you post a link on your web site to the Two Creative Studios web site here, your name is entered 2 extra times. You must post the link and then email either me or Terri to let us know. Please provide a link to your web site in the email.
We're giving away 3 prizes! Here's what you can win:
Prize #1: A free online class of your choice. Choose any online or class on demand class we offer at Two Creative Studios.
Prize #2: A goody package of Terri and Sue's hand dyed fabrics.
Prize #3: A goody package of a hand made book from Sue and a Giclee Art print from Terri.
The winners will be chosen on 8/15/09 and will be notified via email. We'll announce all the winners in the next Two Creative Studios newsletter.
Good luck!
We finally got some decent weather around here the last couple of day so I took advantage of it and got out the soy wax supplies to do some more experimenting with batiking. I decided to try working with found objects to apply the wax to some cotton fabric:
A wire basket and an old cookie cutter left over from my culinary school days were the tools I used to create these fabrics:
I painted this one in the photo above using Dye-na-flow paints.
And on these next two I used procion dye:
I'm working on writing up a "getting started with soy wax batik "project sheet for the next Two Creative Studios newsletter. I'm hoping to have it ready to go out next week so make sure you're signed up for the newsletter if you want to be notified when it's ready.
And speaking of Two Creative Studios. Sandy has been doing some testing for the Creative Book Making class. Check out the fabulous samples she's made here and here,
Ages ago I bought a bag of soy wax flakes which I tossed in a drawer and forgot about. Well I've recently been bitten by the batik bug so I gathered up some supplies and tossed the soy wax into a electric skillet and spent a couple of days this week doing some experimenting.
I started with some cotton fabric that I had pre-soaked in a soda ash solution and let dry overnight. This first piece I did by dipping the rim of a glass in to the wax:
and this next one was done simply by brushing the wax onto the fabric:
Then I remembered that a very good friend of mine gifted me a while ago this gorgeous wood stamp:
It's a large one - almost 6" across at the widest point. I love it and thought it would be perfect for batik so...
Then I decided to work with some silk. Here's my practice piece:
It take a bit of practice to get used to working with the Tjantings and as soon as we get another decent weather day around here I'll be back on the deck doing some more practicing with it. This last piece of silk I did with a paintbrush:
This is my favorite piece. I love how the dye seeped through the cracks of the wax. I really had fun creating these pieces and I can't wait to get back outside to do some more experimenting.
Online class update: The Creative Box Making for the Fiber Artist class starts tomorrow! Registration for the class is still open and will remain open through next Friday. All the details on this class can be found here.
And speaking of next Friday... the More Journal Making for the Fiber Artist class starts next Friday June 26th. All the details on that class are here.
This journal was made with Timtex, Lutradur & Grungeboard...
9"x6"x2". The inside is lined with painted Lutradur and filled with a combination of blank drawing paper and hand painted papers:
We added a new free project to the Two Creative Studios website. Directions for making the Foiled Silk Cards I blogged about a few days ago can be found here.
You'll also find some new Class On Demand Workshops on the site as well. Click here to see all the on demand classes we offer.
And before I forget - Vicki has opened a new etsy shop! Click here to visit her new shop and grab some of those gorgeous hand dyed fabrics she creates.
and speaking of Etsy shops - Terri is offering free shipping to US customers in her shop for the month of June. Click here to visit her shop and treat yourself to a piece of her fabulous artwork.
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