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On Saturday I took a class at The Center for Book Arts on W. 27th Street in NY on paste paper printing taught by artist, Lynn Gall.  Also in the class were Benedicte and Shirley! We worked right through lunch, creating and having a blast.  The Center is very cool, and I’ll add a post soon on the exhibits on display (and we stop at FIT to see a couple additional exhibits.

Our instructor, artist Lynn Gall

Shirley, Benedicte, and others hard at work

Shirley, me, and Benedicte having an excellent day

Some of the papers I made

and more …

and more

Benedicte and I both took home a container of paste mixture, and I painted more Saturday night and Sunday, until I was out of mixture. (And, yes, I totally over did it yesterday, and my poor back was screaming for me to stop!)

If you’re interested in making some papers of your own, there’s plenty of information online, including this page from Lorna Aaronson’s here.  I’ve photographed the sheets I painted and already started playing around with them in Photoshop.  The piece on the bottom is a paste print over a digital image.  I have some digital images that had one problem or another, such as an ink color running out or a funky print because the printer needed a head cleaning.  Rather than throw them away, I tend to keep them for possible use in a collage or something else. In this case, I tried a paste print over the digital image. Additionally, I photographed all of the prints and started blending them in Photoshop.  You can really go to town on this stuff!

The following are some of my favorites.

The above is paste printing on top of a digital print.

Issue 27 is now available of Just Paint, a free 16-page PDF download published by Golden Artist Colors and available here.  This issue include an article that investigates the drying time of acrylic colors and gel mediums, another about Golden’s virtual paint mixer, which you can find here, information on “the color graveyard,” and more.  (I’ve no affiliation.)

Here are more watercolor papers that I painted with left over dye from snow dyeing last week.  The dye still works great on paper.   I may do a few more sheets, but it’s really time that I stop making materials and start making art.  I easily divert myself and then realize time is going by and I need some focus.

While cleaning up my dye/paint area, I saw a lot of interesting looking dried up paper towels in the trash.  I started pulling them out.

I started weeding through them, as some of the towels look good.  Oh my gosh, I’ve now been reduced to picking my own garbage for paper towels.

Can you believe that I actually ironed some of these to keep?  At times I think I’ve lost my mind.  Even so, look at that turquoise/blue sheet.  That color is popping.  It seems I should be able to do something with it other than it sitting in a pile.  My friend Beryl makes fabric paper.  I suspect I can try her method and use paper towels in place of other papers.  Maybe I’ll bring it all over her house and play.

I also did make a 12″ quilted square for a quilt being made for a friend as a surprise, a birthday surprise of sorts.  I want to show it here because it came out pretty, but I’ll wait just in case she reads this blog and figures it out!  At least I got some stitching finished and am not just confined to pushing pixels all day and ironing paper towels at night.  I need to get out more.

I generally use paint on watercolor papers.  However, I had so much dye left over when snow dyeing, that I couldn’t bear to put it all down the drain.  Instead, I poured a lot into jars to create a pile of watercolor papers to use in future projects.  Prior to putting dye onto the paper, and I’ve no idea if this is necessary,  I first sponged on a bit of soda ash solution onto the paper.  In the past, however, I’ve also used dye to paint on paper without soda ash.  Once that paper was dry and I later wet it, nothing happened, such as the dye running in any way.  If anyone is familiar with dyeing on paper, let me know if using soda ash on the paper is necessary.  It may not be.

I decided to use some of the papers into a journal. This is a single signature book.

The inside front cover.

A fold out spread.

Another fold out spread.

The inside back.

I also put together another journal using multiple signatures of watercolor paper that I inkjet printed onto.  I’ll get those pictures up tomorrow.

As an aside, another snow dyed piece of fabric.

Nancy Breland of Pennington, NJ provided a set of detailed instructions on snow dyeing to ProChem.  You can find the instructions here.  After reading through them, I realized I needed something to raise my fabric up so that when the snow melted, the fabric wouldn’t be sitting in a pool of water/dye.  Rather than going to the store, I looked around the house and found some aluminum trays.  I cut some holes in them, inverted them, and put them into a plastic container with those containers into another. The photo above shows one tray right side up, but I later inverted it.

Nancy gave instructions for adding urea to the water with the dye powder.  I had some handy, so I used it.

I mixed my dyes using a heavy duty respirator. It was too cold outside for me to work.

Nancy also described a method of mixing the snow with the dye is a bowl rather than just pouring it on, although pouring it onto the snow also works.

There was a lot of dye that went all over my work table, despite me trying to be tidy. I decided to soak it into watercolor paper to later use in some other project.

Here's the snow as it is starting to melt.

And here is the finished fabric (I only did three pieces) and some of the water color paper.

a close-up of one area of the piece below

the second piece - it's soft, but pretty

This and the one under it are three views of the same fabric. I had some large blotches in places from where the fabric fell into the pool of dye beneath the pan.

Luckily this piece is large - 60 by about a yard - so the waste isn't too bad.

one side of the watercolor paper

the other side

one side of the watercolor paper

the other side of the watercolor paper

All in all, not bad.  I’m off to San Francisco for Photoshop World where the weather is predicted to be in the mid-60s and sunny.  Here it’s very, very cold and snowy.  When I get home, and if there is more snow, I’ll give it another try.  This time I’ll raise the fabric higher.

Snow dyeing is becoming very popular, especially with all of the snow we had last winter and now this winter. This YouTube video is from ProChem, the east coast’s best supplier of dyes and related supplies. In NJ, we just had a fresh batch of snow. Hmmm … do I really need to do this? Will I really give it a try tomorrow? Hmmm …

The above photos is from of one of pieces that I painted on Saturday that ended up getting rained on.  The other two images underneath is the second of the two pieces I did.  Both were drenched.  Rich saw them, ran out in the rain with me.  I rolled it in the plastic, and he and I got it into the garage where the fabric remained rolled up for two days (rain on Sun and Mon, and no enough room to roll them flat).  Today the weather was lovely.  Once I could take a break from working, I unrolled them on the grass.  Both were still wet and paint was running all over them.  I sloshed the paint around and added more where it was needed.  I did it about 2 in the afternoon, and it didn’t dry until after 7 p.m.  The piece is about 4.5 yards by 60 inches, and it took nearly an hour to iron it!

Here are the photos of the other piece.  This one is 3 yards by 60 inches.  I’m very grateful that both pieces came out fine and that I’ll be able to use them for quilt backs.

This is the last of the discharging I did Tuesday night.

The above are black cotton sateen.

These three photos are from the same piece.  It’s about a yard in size.  While I’m not usually a brown person, I like this and I like the other brown pieces that I did.  They have a rich soil quality I like.

I have a couple of these orange pieces, and they are my least favorite, although it could make a good accent color.  It’s from a Walmart black cotton.

I’m taking a break from discharging as on Tuesday night my gloves wore through the finger tips.  The top back pad area of my fingers are still quite tender.  Yes, I ordered much thicker gloves and a respirator (the one I was using wasn’t cutting it).

Before the finale of Lost, I discharged a few more pieces of fabric.  The first three are blacks that I bought from Joann’s – an Egyptian cotton.

I like how these came out.  They feel tight, almost like a batik.

These were some more blacks from my workroom.  No idea what make.  I do like the the browns.

The above is another black from Joann’s.  It was the most expensive black I found there – $7.95 a yard – and it seems to soak in the bleach almost immediately and no black remained.  I’m surprised at how bright it came out.  I have a couple others from this black.  It also reads orangy, but paler with subtle patterning.

After a long spell of what felt like way too much of the stressful flavor of work and not nearly enough me time, I finally felt like I could take some time off to focus on some of my own art.  While I desperately want to make a new wall hanging, I decided to do some fabric painting to get the juices flowing.  I like painting large pieces in a primarily black pattern to use on the backs of quilts.  I finally felt some happy brewing as painting became my goal for the afternoon. Rich came outside and took this picture.  He pointed out that my hands and arms are covered, but I got the “why the heck are you painting barefoot” speech along with the “are you painting in your pajama bottoms?”  That would be I like being barefoot and yes, pj bottoms.

It didn’t take long for him to come outside telling me it might rain.  Happy me is no longer a happy me because I thought it was suppose to be a clear afternoon (and it was — mostly).  So the above is a version of the “oh damn” face as I quickly painted the piece and a second, hoping for the best.  It started to lightly drizzle, but I thought it would stop.  Being that the deck is wooden, and paint was dripping all over the plastic, I figured there was a good chance I’d mess up the deck (ask me how I know fabric paint and a wooden deck don’t get along) if I tried to drag it into the garage.  I decided to leave the fabric alone.  It did drizzle, nothing too hard, but I suspect I now have a four yard x 60″ piece of crap looking fabric — well, two pieces of crap fabric. We’ll see.  It’s still outside as I figure it can’t get much worse (well, it could blow off the plastic and into mud).

I decided to gather up some black fabrics and discharge them.  First I wrapped the fabrics into various bundles.  Then I set up two buckets in a tub.  One had bleach in it, the other anti-chlor to stop the bleaching action.

The process was a fast one.  It didn’t even take a minute to get a reaction from the bleach.  I then dunked the fabric into anti-chlor while taking off the various elastics and what not.  Then everything went into a hot wash with more anti-chlor.  The different blacks produced different results.  I don’t know what fabric is what or where two came  from, but the fabric that came out with more of a muslin look was an inexpensive cotton from a nearby Walmart.  Since the fabric department is being phased in our nearby store, I’ve been periodically checking in to see when things might go on sale.  I’m envisioning buying up things like needles, pins, and other basic supplies.

These are the results of the black from Walmart.  Much more black came out, although it did wash nicely.

I used plastic lids to get this effect.

I like this piece and am glad it’s about a yard in size.

Here’s another black.  It discharged to a pale gray.  I also like this piece, and it’s about a yard.  To my eye it looks more like a batik than a discharged black.

This is a small piece, but I love the look of it.

Here’s the flip side.

This is also about a yard in size.  I’m planning a trip to the Monument Valley area of Utah and the surrounding canyons in early June.  I like how the color scheme of these pieces are putting me in mind of that area.

I tried to replicate the small piece that I like so much, but wasn’t able to do it.  This is a portion of one end (the piece is narrow but long).

And this is a piece from the other end.

While I may have messed up the fabric that’s still in the backyard, I’m pleased with the discharged fabrics.  I’m going to get more fabrics folded and ready do some additional discharging — maybe tomorrow.  I *may* try some other solid colors and commercial prints to see what happens to them.  This time I’m going to remember to put a mask on.  I can still feel the bleach in my lungs despite having a ventilation fan on.

My hope is that creating some new fabric will get myself in gear to make some new work.  We’ll see!

Each year the Festival of Quilts show held in Birmingham, UK features a “virtual studio” – a large wet studio where various types of complex cloth are created.  This year Claire Benn, Leslie Morgan, Linda Maynard, Claudia Helmer, and Elaine Griffiths worked using four main processes.  The only thing better would have been the addition of Jane Dunnewold.  Her presence was there, in spirit,  as co-author of some of the books being sold.

Demonstrations included breakdown printing, which is a way of using a silkscreen (or silkscreens)  and Procion MX dyes to create patterned cloth.  Paper lamination, which uses photographic imagery and/or newsprint with matte medium to create design on sheer polyester fabric.  Screen printing and tray & bucket dyeing.

The above images show a long piece of sheer polyester over several photocopied black/white images — a “paper lamination” in process.  We were told that the cheaper the paper used to copy onto, the better.  The screens have a design on it – this can be a temporary design or a permanent screen, whatever your preference.  Matte medium (she was using Liquitex) is then squeegeed through the screen.  After the entire cloth is thoroughly dried, the paper is washed out.  More information about this process is in the book, “Paper & Metal Leaf Lamination,” which you can get in the US through Jane Dunnewold or in the UK through Committed to Cloth.

Various improvisational screens for printing.

I love looking at art journals, especially when they are crammed with clippings, samples, notes, ideas, and the like. The above journal  filled to the brim with various discharging samples and notes.

The point of the Virtual Studio is to expose people to different methods of creating patterened cloth.  It’s part of the Festival of Quilts show, meaning once you pay admission to the show, you can hang out at the wet studio for as long as you want.  It’s fun watching the artists work, listening to the questions and to the answers.  And photos are allowed.  And of course there are also books and a DVD or two available to purchase.  I bought the latest book from Committed to Cloth, “Screen Printing: Layering Textiles with Colour, Texture & Imagery.” It’s pricey, but good.  If creating art cloth is up your alley, be sure to check out what Jane Dunnewold offers.

I wasn’t sure if I’d make it here today, considering it IS a work day.  But, I decided to go for it.  I’m very glad that I did.  Everyone in the class did some amazing work …

Benedicte …

Sherryl …

Rayna …

Judy …

Colleen …

Randy …

Janet …

Christine …

Jan had one jaw-dropping piece after the next …

This was one of Jan’s little experimental pieces.

Jan explained a few more techniques, this one being direct painting onto a wrapped piece.

It was dye bath mixing time — when everyone put their gloved hands into the bucket to swish around the dye water making sure the dye wasn’t settling on the bottom of the pail and instead was getting onto the fabric.

Then all of the fabric dunked in the dye would sit quietly until the buzzer went off and the next round of mixing started.

An assortment of some of the clamps, clips, and other mark-making devices.

Here are some of my fabrics.  I like the darker purples areas of this more so than the lighter areas, but I like how the light area looks like a set-in block.

While I have no idea what I’d do with this one, I do like it and consider it one of the better ones that I dyed.

This was a pole-wrapped piece using a lot of string.   I meant to be more careful with my wrapping, but I was running out of time to make the last dye bath so I did a fast roll.  Even so, I like how it turned out.

Here are some of the other fabrics I dyed today that I’m happy with.

All in all, it was an excellent class.  Jan was very organized yet relaxed in her approach.  She gave each student a folder with class notes that included an overview of the techniques covered in class.  She also provided us with a fabric swatch set made from the various dye baths made during the class along with its recipe.

Bottom line:  If you have an opportunity to take a class with Jan, go for it!

It was day two with Jan Myers-Newbury teaching shibori techniques at The Newark Museum. I’ve been fortunate to be hitching a ride with Jan, Judy Langille, and Colleen.

Jan is demonstrating wrapping a wide rope with fabric.

I know I should be paying attention, but the reflection on the window behind Jan kept grabbing my attention.  I had to photograph it.  Reflections of shibori … now there’s a patterned design!

The unwrapping of some of the stitched pieces we did as homework.

I didn’t make this lovely …

But I did this one.  The center area was stitched during the evening (well, night, since it was a late one).  The stitching was done in three circles and then drawn tightly before dunking into the dye bath.

More fabric wrapped on poles and dunked into dye baths.

I wish I could say both of these are mine.  But, nope.  The top is Randi’s and the bottom is part of Colleen’s.

One of the studios we work in was filled with looms …

and lots of colorful yarns.

These are direct dyed fabrics without soda ash.  Tomorrow they will be wrapped and dunk into dye baths.  The results should be interesting.

Now, my dilemma.  Tomorrow is day three, but tomorrow is also a work day.  Hmmm … what to do, what to do.