Today I went a little overboard with monoprinting on fabric. It took me over an hour to upload all the photos, so this might be a little longer than usual.
I started with a transparency, which, being transparent is a little hard to see above.
A pile of muslin pieces, roughly cut to size, Some hand wipes that didn't have much colour already and Some scraps of batting. I also used a few scraps of chiffon.
A few tools and aids, many of which I didn't use, but I'm showing you for posterity, lol. Brayers, scrapers, brushes, a credit card, lots of pieces of foam and caps for printing, bubble wrap and string and sequin waste, and just a few stencils and masks.
Most importantly, paint and a water spray bottle (both upside down, but you get the idea). I was using fabric paints today, but as you will see later, a bit of acrylic comes in handy.
This is the brayer I use for spreading the paint. A half size paint roller, which I slide a toilet roll over. The toilet rolls become quite lovely, and I use them too, but more on that another day.
My first plate was a bit thick, but I got two prints for the price of one.
Steps 1 to four - First I sprayed my fabric briefly, then laid the monoprint on top (I find this way is easier than laying the flimsy fabric on top of the print). I brayered with a clean brayer over the plate, then peeled the plate away. Voila'
The one at the top is the first one, and the bottom is the ghost print. They both had gorgeous wavy texture, though.
Next I thought I'd try a layered print. I started with the same blue background, then used a bottle top to print circles in magenta. Next I used a little piece of textured rubber to stamp in yellow.
The final print is on the left above. I sprayed a little too much water on the fabric, and it bled a bit, but still made a nice print. On the right, I printed the ghost print into one of my journals.
Next I tried a stencil print. Row 1 my stencil and some diluted acrylic paint sprays, Row2. Sprayed over the stencil then removed it. Row 3 brayered the plate down onto the fabric and peeled the plate off.
And the final print (above).
Above I mixed a few colours and printed on fabric (above), then tried a piece of batting (below).
The one on the above left is the one from this print, with a few other pieces of batting. I am looking forward to stitching into these.
For this print above, I sprayed acrylic on, then textured it with a corrugated foam brush, then laid on some bubble wrap rollered with white paint. I did a few of these (Picture 4).
Here I used the textured roller again, then added some white with a silicone basting brush, then dragged a grouting tool over. I printed on chiffon for this one.
I really loved this print on the chiffon. I also wiped up some mess with a piece and it looked great, too.
I got a ghost print on some cotton, too.
The one above was my favourite technique. 1. put some paint on. 2. Lay another transparency on top and rub to spread the paint. 3. Peel off and get a beautiful texture on two plates (click to enlarge). 4. the two prints from the mirror image plates. The one on the left is without dampening the fabric. The one on the right was with fabric sprayed with water. They were both beautiful.
At this stage I got into the flow and forgot to take photos
This was a ghost print from one of the other prints I did.
On this print, I drew into the plate before printing.
At one stage while I was printing, hubby came in with the mail, which was my
product of the month from the thread studio. This month was lutradur (Thanks Dale), so I took a few pieces and printed them. The one on the right was just some paint on the plate, but the ones on the left were printed from a cedar canyon ginko texture plate (Not quite monoprinting, but you will see why in a minute) These samples were transparent and yummy and I can't wait to get working on them.
Thse were my other (lol) favourites. I pressed the above mentioned texture plate into the paint before printing. Below them are two close ups. The texture plates still had paint on, so that is why I got the lutradur prints.
This one used a stencil of lace I cut with my silhouette.
This one used the corrugated foam roller again.
The one on the left used a piece of foam to overprint the green before printing. The one on the right was just some paint and some drops of gold, but the transparency I used actually had an image on it and it transferred too!
And of course I ended up with some very colourful wipes!
And that was as far as I got, it was tea time when I finished and so I haven't had time to put together a journal quilt for this experiment. It will have to wait for next time.
Until then, happy creating!
