Jacquard paint – Page 5

Painting Hydrangea Leaves

Posted on July 21, 2019July 22, 2019 by Laura Kate

Beside the patio lives a beautiful oakleaf hydrangea. Every morning, I drink my coffee in its shadow and admire the sunlight shining through the leaves. I have been wanting to incorporate these wonderful leaves into my fiber art all summer long.

If you look carefully at the photo, you will notice that there is a variety of leaf shapes presented by this plant. There can be three, four or five lobes on a leaf. It seems that the baby leaves start out almost round and the lobes develop as the leaf matures. I have decided to do a mosaic of the leaf shapes with fabric paint and resist on cloth.

Here are two of the drawings I made of these shapes. I will be using the shape outlined in black ink for today’s paintings.

There are two experiments today. In one, I use the water based resist on the leaf shape, paint the background, then remove the resist and paint the leaf. In the second experiment, I paint the entire piece, add resist to the leaf shape and over-paint the background. Here is a photo of both experiments in the first stage. The lines are traced and a yellow tinted resist is applied to both swatches. The left swatch has the whole leaf covered in resist.

Experiment one. I used a violet background.

This photo show the fabric after the resist is washed away. The yellow leaf veins didn’t stick, but some of the yellow outline is still visible.

in this photo I applied resist all around the leaf shape before painting the leaf itself.

Paint on leaf still wet. Only a little green leaked out on the lower right side.

Experiment two. I started by applying yellow tinted resist to the veins and outline, then covered the entire fabric with yellow-green paint.

Paint has dried. I applied additional resist over the leaf area before painting the background.

I am happy with today’s experiments. I like the dark velvety color of experiment two. But experiment one has potential. Both are now ready for additional paint effects.

colorwork, painting

Consolidate. Gestate. Internalize.

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Laura Kate

For the past three days I have been irresolute about making new fiber objects. I haven’t been idle – not a chance of that! But I felt more internal about my efforts than external, that is, not ready to show or talk about them.

Consolidate: (verb) 1. to join together into one whole. 2. to make firm or secure.

Gestate: (verb) to conceive and gradually develop in the mind.

Internalize: (verb) to incorporate within the self as conscious or subconscious guiding principles through learning.

If you ever start to feel you are stuck creatively, I suggest you reframe your status with the verbs above. It could be that you are not stuck at all but are internalizing.

A week ago, I agreed to offer fiber arts lessons again to the local homeschool association. To keep from being overwhelmed, I suggested that I teach project or workshop-type lessons. So part of my time has been spent on writing syllabi for these workshops. The first topic is crochet. I propose to teach crochet in the round.

**View of my worktable with two crocheted baskets in use.**

I finished the syllabus for this workshop and made this sample.

It has been a while since I’ve created with yarn. It felt good to get back to it.

Secondly, I have been fooling around with pattern and paint on my color washed fabrics. Using foam, felt, cotton yarn and cardboard, I made these stamps.

I then proceeded to use them on this sample as well as a dark gray sample. My paint selection included Jacquard Textile paints, which are semi-transparent, Pebeo Setacolor opaque white, and some metallic acrylic paint I had laying around. Here are my doodles.

I’m loving the dark sample, especially the way the white opaque shapes and the glittery bronze shapes jump forward from the brooding background.

painting

Color wash – The Dark Side

Posted on July 11, 2019 by Laura Kate

Okay, no Star Wars reference intended – I am talking about painting on a dark solid fabric. This is what I chose to do today. My goal is to make swatches that will represent the night sky in a future fiber object. Here are my chosen fabrics:

The gray solid will be used for most of the work. I chose the white marbled fabric because the black lines are vaguely cloud-like. Here we go:

With the gray fabric pieces cut roughly 13 by 21 inches, I painted one with blue and black and the other with violet, blue and black. I used foam brushes and loose, wavy strokes. Then I blended all the blotches together and lay the fabrics flat to dry. Here they are after drying.

The original gray is still visible, but it just shades the colors into a deeper range. I like the brooding, atmospheric effect. Next is the white marbled fabric.

I stuck with the blue paint, but darkened it by mixing in black for a monochromatic color scheme. At the last minute, I decided to scrunch the wet fabric.

And here is the swatch after it has dried.

This looks nothing like a night sky to me. It more resembles fast-moving water rippling over rocks. This piece could inspire a new fiber object for a later day.

colorwork, painting

DIY Fabric Color – Pattern

Posted on July 9, 2019July 11, 2019 by Laura Kate

Today I will be enhancing the fabrics I color washed yesterday with more color. I’m excited to try water-based resist, a product new to me. I will be using it on the pale pink strip of fabric, also pictured, above.

The product came with a little applicator. I quickly discovered that it was impossible to get the gloppy resist paste into the tiny opening on the applicator. So I moved on to using a narrow paintbrush. But first, I wanted to try some crayons, just to see if the crayon marks would resist the paint. Here is my swatch all crayoned and resisted, before I flowed in the paint.

I mixed yellow, orange and ecru Dye-Na-Flow paint to get a bright gold color.

Tomorrow we will see whether the resist worked. Next I moved on to the striped piece of fabric. I wanted to print it with the following item:

Any one who is related to a son or a grandson will recognize a foam nerf bullet. I will be printing with the back end of the bullet, which makes a very nice circle. Here is the fabric before and after printing with orange Jacquard Textile paint.

**Before**. (**In this image the paint is still wet.**)

I would say that this fabric is unique.

Addendum to this post: I thought you might be interested in seeing these fabric swatches after they were washed, dried and pressed.

I’m pleased with these swatches, but especially so the water resist piece. Even though the lines did not resist all the way through the fabric, the front of the piece shows the pink lines clearly. The only negative is that the resist hasn’t completely washed out of the fabric. I will probably need to give the fabric an additional soak.

painting

DIY Fabric Colors

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Laura Kate

Recently I ordered a LOT of Dye-na-Flow fabric paint from Dharma Trading Co. https://www.dharmatrading.com/ Now that I have the quilting bug, I want to create my own fabrics. I know, there are thousands of beautiful quilt fabrics out there in retail world. But most of them are just not for me. And the ones I do like are kinda pricey. So here I go, making my own.

I had purchased several yards of white and light gray solid fabric specifically for coloring. I have an idea for designing a sunset scene. So today I am coloring the white fabric with warm colors such as yellow, orange, gold, and pink. Here is my swatch fabric where I tested a few combinations.

**There’s also a little bit of ecru in the mix.**

I plan to use 4 inch strips in my project, so I cut the fabric into 13″ wide pieces. This will yield three strips per piece, and incidentally, be a workable size for painting. Here are the results of today’s work:

**Stripes of sunset colors. The orangey stripe should fall into the center of the 4 inch strip.**

**This gold turned out very well. I added some orange stripes and splatters.** **The stripe will go across the strips.**

**This was the tail end piece. It may be enough for one strip. It looks a bit blue in this photo, but I assure you that it dried pale pink.**

It was a relaxing and productive afternoon. I look forward to working on the gray fabric. It will be interesting to see how it reacts to the sheer fabric paint.