A Week of Experimentation

I am happy to share that over the past week I've had an opportunity to experiment with some ideas. During our vacation on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick I got inspired by raindrops on leaves. I set a goal to learn about how to create the look of raindrops on fabric. Turns out that it is quite easy. I simply googled "drawing and painting water drops". There are numerous art sites that explain how to look at a waterdrop. No wonder I love them. It is all about the hi-lights and shadows! My first experiment involves fusing raindrop shapes to a piece of fabric to make the drops look "raised". Then I went at them with Prismacolor Artist Pencils to add hi-lights and shadows. I must say I'm very pleased so far. I'd also like to try a few different techniques and see what else I can come up with.

I've also been enamored with boats and reflections on water of late. My idea was to dye some pole-wrapped shibori in a marine sort of colour, experimenting with different widths of stripes. I tried different strings and tried varying the space between each round about the pole. So far so good, but I think the next step is going to be to paint in some of the white areas with whatever colours are reflected in the water, probably using thickened dyes to paint with.

On the beach in New Brunswick I picked up the most beautifully-coloured mussel shell. Silly me, I did not keep it. That is OK because this is how I remember it. Part of it was purple and purple-blues, and part of it seemed a butterscotch colour. So I spent a fair bit of time choosing a palette like this and cutting out squares in various sizes to make another quilt with free-hand curves. The blocks will be in various sizes and have lots of movement

Finally, I also experimented a bit with screen printing. You may recall that back in July I took a class on Screen Monoprinting on paper. This past week I applied the same principles to fabric. While we used silk paints on paper, I used fibre reactive dyes on fabric. I painted the liquid dyes on the screen and left them to dry. Note, the liquid dyes do not seep through the fine mesh of the screen. I should have taken photos of the painted screens but I forgot.

 



I was really just playing with colour. This was just a rough start to my experiments. With paper we used wall paper glue to screen the dried silk dyes. With fibre reactive dyes on fabric I used thickened print paste (sodium alginate). I pulled the dyes through the screen with my squeegee using water thickened with print paste.

 





 

I was able to get two prints from each screen. Still a few glitches to iron out, like how to keep the screen from slipping or moving while I'm "pulling" the squeegee. I need to work on my setup. I need to pull out a proper table to do this on, and not just on the edge of my washing machine. I also need to determine just how much thickened print paste is needed to "pull" each screen.

 

I find my screens a little too small. By the time I tape them to make sure I have a clean crisp edge, I'm only left with a design space of about 8" x 10". Think I'll invest in a larger screen, but first I better figure out what I want to use this method for. Reflections is one idea.

 

It's been a long time since I've had the chance to do this much experimenting in a single week. I'm pretty excited about it! Stay tuned!





A Week of Professional Development

Last week I engaged in a week of professional development. OK, I just happened to do it in a beautiful place: Haliburton, Ontario. I returned Friday night mosquito and bug-bitten.

It was lovely to be by the lakes, and for the most part we had glorious summer weather.. 

It was equally lovely to be in the woods. I love the way the leaves in the forest often seem to emit light.

My goal for taking a class on Screen Mono-Printing, was to learn more about the use of silk screens, and to loosen up a bit. I confess that I resisted getting down to work for about three days. Fear? Perhaps. Out of practice at creating anything? That too! I finally did apply myself and produce a few pieces. We painted on screens with Procion H silk dyes, waited for them to dry, and then screened with wallpaper paste onto paper.

This piece was inspired by boats and reflections I photographed in Greece.

Leaves created from my head. I had this vision that they would be outlined in black ink. My instructor urged me to go loose and bold using the printing press for the veins. I was stubborn and stayed with my ink idea. A calligraphy marker in fact. Unfortunately it overpowered my leaf.

I painted and screened leaves again, and this time they turned out much bolder and they ran more due to heavy use of the silk dyes. If you click on this photo you can see better that I outlined with a lighter marker this time.

This piece was inspired by my travels in New Mexico. The background represents the maze of structures at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and the ladder is inspired by those that lead up to the rooftops at Taos Pueblo. For the ladder, I actually carved the design on a plexiglass plate, inked it, and printed it on a printing press. 

I got lost in painting this piece. The first photo is the result from my first pull on the screen.

There was still a lot of colour on the screen, so I decided to pull a second image (at left). This is called a "ghost" image. Unfortunately I lost a bit of my design on the right-hand size due to not pressing enough on that side. To save this piece I painted another screen with just the dark left and right edges to kind of frame it. I think I like the ghost image better than the original.

 

This was the last print I produced and was quite fun. It involved laying torn newsprint paper on the paper I was about to print on, which produced the white tree-like structures. After the first pull I pulled these pieces of paper out and screened a second ghost image over the white trees. The newsprint resists were later used to add additional colour surprises throughout the image in a collage-like fashion.

Here is a photo of my class ... they inspired me a great deal! To my right is our instructor, Michael Earle.

Thursday afternoons at Haliburton School of Art + Design are always an exciting time in the summer program. Classes end at 4 pm and a two-hour "walk-about" takes place. Visitors and students can see what goes on in other classes.

I always find the class where students are carving their own totem poles quite fascinating. Quite different from anything I've done.

Across the hall students were building their own musical instruments.

Now I'm back and finishing preparations for my two weeks of teaching in Haliburton beginning next week. I will be sure to blog about them.