Deconstructed Screen Printing

Posted on by under surface design

My local surface design group met this afternoon and we screened tons of prints from the screens that I showed you a couple of weeks ago. I also had added some thickened dye to my paper lamination screens and Louise brought some screens with dried dye as well. We had a blast. These photos are either of wet prints or partially deconstructed screens. The ones that I made 2 weeks ago did take a while to break down since they had dried for a while.

This isn’t even close to the number of pieces we printed. I will show you more once they have been washed. This is one of the techniques that we keep coming back to because we love the unpredictable results. We printed on silk, cotton and paper.

Hope you have a nice weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Time to Stand and Stare

Posted on by under Inspiration

Pink Water Lily
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Bark

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

Mama and Baby Goat

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

Chipmunk

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

Lush Green

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

Glacier Lilies, Photo by Ruth Lane

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

Sunset Bucerias

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

— William Henry Davies

Preparing for a Day of Silk Screening

Posted on by under surface design

My local group is going to be doing a day of silk screening at my house soon. So my friend Barb and I made some print paste and made some screens for deconstructing. The photos aren’t the best but hopefully you’ll get the idea.

These are the three screens. The one on the left was done with pine needles for texture. The middle one was stamped with three different foam flower stamps. And the last one was done with a syringe and drawing on the screen. I just realized when I looked at the photo that I forgot to add vertical squiggles on one of the lines. Oh well. I guess that’s a design feature.

This is the paper that I put beneath the pine needle screen to take up any excess dye. Once we pulled the screen off the paper, we turned the pine needles over and printed with them on to the paper. I really like how these turned out. Now to let everything dry. Some of the print paste is pretty thick on the screens so it will take a while to dry. But the meeting isn’t until the 11th so I have plenty of time.

Layering Tissue Paper and Fabric

Posted on by under mixed media

Today my surface design group met and we played with layering tissue paper, cheese cloth, sheer fabric and a fabric base. Then we added metallic foil and even some Pearl Ex Powders. I completely forgot to take any photos while we were there.

layered tissue piece web

Here’s a photo of what I put together. I had to add more blue paint when I got home because one of the tissue papers that I used which was blue, turned red when it got wet.

layered tissue close up web

Here’s a close up. This was an interesting process as the layering keeps changing how it looks. I have to decide if I want to fuse this to fabric and then do some machine stitching or just leave it as is. I might cut it up into smaller pieces and make greeting cards. I haven’t decided yet.

Paula's Piece

This one was done by my friend Paula. We brought it home and used paper croppers to see how it would look framed. The photo doesn’t really do it justice though.

Feeling Batty

Posted on by under Felt, fibers, wet felting

This summer I will be teaching at Olds Fibre Week in Canada. So I have been working on supplies for the classes. Each morning, I make a batt on the drum carder.

drum carder

This first set I am working on is for Felting Cosmic Phone Cases. So the colors are ones that you might think of as night sky.

wool batt

The colors are blues, purples, and mixes of black, grey and cool colors. Then there are contrasting embellishments for planets, stars and constellations.

bin of batts

This is the bin of all the ones I have made so far. I am up to about 18-20.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Here’s an example of the phone case that I’ll be teaching. So if you’re interested in taking any classes, you can start signing up on the Olds website on March 8. I will also be teaching how to felt a cup sleeve/cozie, nuno felting a scarf, felting a cat cave and felting slippers.