Adding to my stash

I do believe I just may have some useful stuff to stack in the fabric shelves!

I laid out fabric and paint on my large cutting table.  I kinda had a few thoughts but not a real plan.

I started laying down masks and stencils and sprayed away in various areas.

Then I began to add the stamps.  I saw that I wanted the stamps and even the stencils under the spray drift and I also quickly realized I did better on the large pieces of fabric.  So I went back and did the areas that had been covered by smaller chunks of cloth.

I let the first attempt dry and repositioned the white cotton fabric and began to lay down the larger motifs in an all over way to get good random coverage.  Then I misted this with water and did some spraying.

 This is the earlier attempt and was necessary so I could begin to figure what works best for me. The stamps are definitely better with two layers of foam.  I have several questions that I will need to find some answers for.  Should I work dry or wet  is an important one.

This is the whole piece of white cotton.  I had started on the far right side.  Then I removed the overlapping fabric for the off centred section. The near left side is the last bit of experimenting that I did.

Now if this is the kind of fabric I would use for something like borders what would supporting fabrics look like?  What if I did some small pieces of fabric for the actual blocks themselves?  hmmmm 

wow, what if...

Yesterday I was trying all my primary and secondary colours on plain sketchpad paper.  I wanted a reference for exact hues when I wanted to use say, red, which can be a blue red (cool) or an orange red (warm). When I got all my colours on the papers I had a what if moment!  What if I put the colours on cloth?   Then I remembered that I had bought dyes and paints for fabrics. 

Dying fabric is not the same as painting fabric.  The colours adhere differently.  I wanted to see what painting would show as I have dye samples already.  I have a couple of dye posts under my To Dye For page.

So I unearthed my Pebo Setacolours and a few odd jars of fabric paint.  I did try a few acrylic paints meant for paper.  I wish I had also got white in Setacolour as it would be very useful to have the lighter, clearer options.


Here is what I discovered.

My favorite colour.  I did try to get orange by mixing the 2 different reds with yellow. 

Red has more variations that I'd have thought possible!

Purple is tricky.  The light area on the fabric is watered down lots. I tried mixing blue and red watercolours to get a violet. I need to spend some time mixing colours because when I did get the setacolours it was with the idea of mixing other options. But it was recommended that purple be specifically bought.  I can see why.

I'm not a baby blue person but I'm gaining an appreciation for cobalt blue.  Aqua is another favorite colour.
I did a small area of dirty water.  lol  Even the dirty water is useful for backgrounds.  But straight craft acrylics are very stiff.  The fabric paints are much softer.

The inks tend to bleed a lot and they are very matt.  Hmm, I wonder if you added some glitzy stuff???

My biggest surprise was how well fabric paint stamped. These are very cheap kid's foam stamps.   I see no value in painting backgrounds when dyeing is softer and easier.  But dyes would probably bleed in making marks so paint is the way to go!  Even the craft acrylics would be useful for stamping, especially if one used a light hand on applying the acrylic and in pressing the stamp.

This seems like a lot of work but really it is helping me become more familiar with the various mediums and how they look and react.  I'd like to think these are warm up exercises before I take the plunge.  Perhaps it could also be stalling but I'm beginning to get the urge to actually try all these options out.  And that will be a good thing!

I'm linking up to TN&TN so if you'd like to see what my neighbours are doing, please click on the link.

Art Journaling one WOW

I've been following Roni Johnson over on her blog Ink Stains for a while now. My primary interest is fabric with altering books secondary. I'm hoping to combine the two.

Roni has started a series that combines journaling with a different technique for the various pages. I am a bit stalled in my own journey so I'd like to lace up my running shoes and continue the run. Her journey is about Discovery and I want to discover a whole range of techniques.

I do have an altered book that I want to use. I have been collecting all kinds of things that intrigue me with their possible uses. I found Roni's book at Michael's and I figure that will really give me no excuse. So this is a mission to discover all about myself as well as what the heck I've bought!

The first technique is The Faux Rubbing Technique. I've dug out some rubbing plates.

First the basic with paper from the book. Hmm, I need an old white candle??? a white crayon? Then I did a wash of fluid acrylics. This I like.

Second is the challenge of discovering from Roni's blog. But this is with a twist so I need embossing powder and ink- If all else fails, read the instructions!

The suggestion is to use the raised surface as the etching. I could have done a better job, me thinks. The Glimmer Mist I sprayed with didn't really reveal much.

Then last night I decided to turn the pink page in the journal into my geranium challenge.

I practiced a bit on the scrap papers. I used a quilting stencil, a foam stencil, various pens, and crayons; some water soluble, some not. I oversprayed with some glimmer mist and glued down the doily. I'm not sure I'm even finished. Oh, I'm supposed to write something. Cool!

I have to say altered books for me so far has been all about making some backgrounds. This is my first altered page. WOW!!! I get it. Too much fun. I want MORE!!!

I'm going to be sorting thru my drawers to find all my stuff and get it slapped down on all those backgrounds. Just looking for a stencil uncovered some very neat STUFF! Gesso and washes of colour are only a very small tip of the iceburg and now I see it is the boring part. lol

So third will be to try this on fabric. But that'll have to wait for next week.

So I saved a little money

I spent the whole day, which began with an early appointment, with my daughter and her family in the city. And it was a hot one! I went to Michael's while they went to the big mall and I bought the block printing kit hoping for that elusive large discount. I do need to come back next week so I tried. No change at 40% so I'll just do it next week.

While waiting for the rendez vous I stepped into a small store and there were these wall flowers. 25 lime green on sale! Hmm, they'd be cool on the purple wall. So the sales gal and I considered options to the thumbtacks for my plaster walls. My farmer can predrill. He'll be just thrilled! LOL But I thought lime on purple across from blue/green might not be good so I traded for the white flowers. Now the whites weren't on sale and after I got home I'd decided to paint them various shades of greens so the cheaper first idea would have worked. Oh well!

I'm starting to get excited about this stairway now!