Pastel painted fabric

As I said in my earlier blog on crayon, I much prefer to use pastel for this sort of work.  Probably because I have thousands and am familiar with them from painting.
Below, I have got some fabric laid out on top of parchment.  I would not use newspaper for this process, because the process involves wetting and the newsprint might transfer, or even wors, stick to the fabric when drying. (ask me how I know)  The box of pastels at the top is a pack of windsor and newton and is there as a reminder to me to explain a few things.

Firstly, the more you pay for the pastels, the better result, or more vibrant colours you will get.  This is because dry pastels are made of mostly pure pigment, and a filler or binder, which allows them to be shaped.  However, with just chalk, or student grade pastels, the amount of filler is greater and the pigment therefore is less.  Student grade will work, but not as well as artist quality from a reputable brand.  There is a positive side and that is that dry pastels can be bought individually at most art supply stores (not department stores, real art stores) They will cost 3 to 5 dollars each and for this sort of work will last a reasonable amount of time.
My second point is that I usually add pastels as a powder and because they are mostly pigment, they are very  bright even if only a little is added.  When colouring fabric, the less you have to add, the less it will alter the hand of the fabric and unless you add a lot of pastel, the hand is pretty much the same.

Above you can see my tools for this project.  All that is required is a knife or blade to scrape the side of the pastel and create powder.  Even a sharp paring knife will do, so long as it can scrape.  You can also use a nail file or sand paper, but it will get clogged with powder and you will end up wasting a fair bit.

Here you can see I have put some powder on the fabric.  It doesn't look like much does it?

But when I spray it with water, the colour starts to develop.  I actually use a solution of Alum instead of water, and this serves the purpose of fixing the pigment into the fabric (You can get Alum crystals from the pharmacist, you may have to order it because it is not an everyday item) Alum is the mordant used in most printer fabric.

In the above sample I have smudged the pastel with my fingers after letting it soak for a while.  You need to make sure all the pastel dust is wet.  Any that is not wet will not enter the fabric and will fall off when you are finished.  And you definitely do not want this stuff around when you are finished as it will stain.

In this one I used a small paint brush to smudge the pastel a bit.

In this one i used a large flat ended stencil brush and rotated it on the dust to make  whorls, or whirpools of colour.

And this one was not altered in any way, the pastel simply soaked in.
I couldn't wait to finish, so I ironed the fabric dry.  Because there is little other than pigment, ironing doesn't really alter the effect like it does with some fabric paints.
And here are some high res pictures of the finished fabric.

No brushing

rotating stencil brush

small strokes with brush

smearing with fingers

As you see it is very easy to get very vibrant colours with this technique.  And there are more ways than these to use them.  

That is for another lesson.

The fabric above was treated twice,  the first layer was pale green and i used the stencil brush, then I put the dark green on top as a sprinkling and allowed it to soak.  If you want the pigment to spread more, you need more fluid.

The sample above was using the smearing technique (Fingerpainting I call it).  If you have been following this blog, you would know that I have a fascination with tree bark textures and this was another experiment in creating bark.  I simply scraped lines of a handful of browns and ochres, sprayed then smeared.  It took all of 30 seconds and I was very pleased with the result.
It really is worth experimenting with this technique.  I would love to see some of your results.

In Art, there is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with interesting results.

Easter basket

 WOW!  and I really mean WOW or Workshop on the Web.  I won!  Workshop on the web is a quarterly english online magazine that I joined a while ago.  It puts out really professional tutorials by some of the best and well-known fibre artists in the UK and elsewhere - and I have won some yummy goodies and a book and entry to an online group for the book.  The book is called Mixed Media: New Studio Techniques by Isobel Hall and Maggie Davies.  You can click on their names to see the great work they do and I know you will agree that this win is perfect for me.


With easter looming, I thought a little project for kiddies might be the go.
This is a small easter basket, which can be as simple or as elegant as you like.
Start with the fabric (or paper, or card) you  wish to use.  I have decided to make mine using the plastic collage  of fusible web I did a few weeks ago

You will need a square.  I chose nine inches, since it can be divided easily by three.  I actually cut my fusible collage a bit bigger to allow for shrinkage during ironing.  I ironed it on to an aqua piece of cotton.  You will need a reasonably stiff piece of fabric, or one which has been stabilised well

Remember to use parchment paper if you are using webbing as I am.

Once ironed, I trimmed the piece to it's final size

My piece shrank a little more than I wanted, so I am using an old tradesman's trick to easily divide into thirds (leave me a comment if you want to know more)

Mark lines, dividing the fabric into thirds left to right and top to bottom (like a nine-patch)

 Sew ribbon, or cording or yarn along the two horizontal lines.  I have used a flat knitting tape which was variegated in all the colours on the other side.  I attached it with straight stitch.

Do the same along the vertical lines, making a grid.  (make sure you leave enough free at each end to tie a bow)

I ran a line of clear nail polish around the edge of the fabric to seal it and stop it fraying.  If you wish you could use fray stop, or you could bind the edge, or do satin stitch, or blanket stitch.  It is all up to you.

Grab two adjacent ribbons, (if you look at the pic above, I mean the two ribbons that come out on each side of a corner, like the two on which the bottle is sitting) and tie them in a bow.

Fold over the little bunny ear you create after tying to show the inside fabric

Repeat this for all four corners

The finished basket.  You  might need to tweak the bottom corners a little to make them sit square.

Because you have made a two sided fabric, you can decide which side is out and change it to suit yourself

There are a myriad of options to assemble your box. You can sew ribbons on as I outlined above, you can sew a button and loop on or you can simply sew up the side seams, you can use grommets and ribbon, similar to the cardboard idea below.  You can quilt the fabric, you can free machine embroider, add embellishments

As I said, this is a simple little basket, and in fact, with a little assistance, you could have kids making their own out of card.  Instead of sewing ribbon on (which you could still do), punch holes in the corners to thread ribbon through.

I know kids would love to make these for their easter eggs, but perhaps not big enough?   This can be made as big as you like, I have been thinking of trying a huge one, quilted, to make a picnic basket and as a rug when unfolded, but more thought is needed.

Enjoy your baskets.

Once you open the creative door, ideas are plenty, whilst time is short.  

Choose to do what you love and it will shine.

Fantastic Plastic

For Friday Focus this week, I experimented with supermarket rubbish bags.  Truly, I did.  Ever since i read Kim Thittichai's Hot Textiles, I have been dying to have a go at her techniques. She is an extremely well known textile and surface artist in the UK and has training in sculpture.  You can view videos of her here (you will have to log in but it's free) and here.   Some of the surfaces she creates and  those by others in the book are simply gorgeous.  I only played with plastic bags today, but there are all sorts of other synthetics to play with as well. What I experimented with was layering and fusing plastics with the iron. 

My technique was pretty simple.  I used a large leaflet of parchment paper on my ironing mat, simply put the plastic between and ironed.  Because the parchment paper is see through, I could see what was going on.  Most effects only needed one or two swipes with a hot iron, then peel off the parchment when cool.

One effect in particular which I really liked was in the encyclopedia of machine embroidery.  I have just taken the last hour to try and find it.  I thought it was bubble wrap and plastic with threads captured between, however it wasn't although it really looked like it.  I tried to get a similar sort of effect.

 

This is a blue shopping bag and bubble wrap layered together.  The white you see is holes (the bubbles burst from the heat)

This is the same but with some blue thread trapped between
I think the first one is closest to what I was after and with some free motion embroidery, would probably be excellent for bubbles under water (I see sea dragons in it's future).

This is some bubble wrap that had a green tinge to it.  I liked the way the colour formed around where the  bubbles were (how to make coloured bubble wrap).

I trapped some autumn leaves between two bag layers, it worked, but the leaves were very brittle and probably needed to be treated with some glycerine or PVA to stop them breaking otherwise any stitching would shatter them.

 

This is some of the plastic mesh bag oranges come in trapped between two layers.  It was interesting that it shrunk more when it was intact (top) whereas, at the bottom, it was loose and didnt' shrink.

Several layers of two colours layered in sheets

Many many layers of the green created this rocky sort of texture

This was made with lots of scrunched up pieces

This shows what happens with one or two flat layers.  The top one shows how the plastic opens up to create and airy texture, while the bottom shows how the plastic laminated with lots of layers.

This sample has many layers of plastic, but they are added one by one and have angelina layered between them.  Adding the pieces one by one allows the creation of the holes, which is a great texture, also shown below:

This is one layer of plastic ironed onto a non thermoreactive plastic (thick acetate).  I really like the way the bag plastic becomes an open texture like this.  If it is heated  on it's own between parchment layers, not only does it break up like this it shrinks.  It needs a substrate or a foundation under it to do this.
I really like this texture and have many ideas about using it, but I wanted to try one more experiment before the end of the day.  I overlapped pieces slightly on a sheet of fusible, then heated.  And look what I got!

 

This sample was the piece d' resistance.  All of the sheets have fragmented and the overlaps create wonderful colours.  The white flecks you see are holes in the plastic, not reflections.  My mind is now spinning with ways to use this new textile.  It can be ironed on to just about any surface and I really just want to get embroidering with it.  You will see this piece again in another work.
so I have had a very productive day, hope you did too

Fibre Film

I have decided Tuesday is Textile Tuesday!  On Tuesdays, I will blog about creating new textiles and surfaces for stitch.
Today we are looking at Fibre Film, which is a technique inspired by Cathy Franks and Bonnie Mc Caffery, but it was also memtioned briefly in Hot Textiles by Kim Thittichai.
This is what we are going to make today

 The one on the left is a film on fusible webbing, on the right is on fusible interfacing.  The fusible interfacing works just as well but the background colours are limited (unless you paint or dye the interfacing first) and the finished product can't be manipulated into shapes and textures as easily.  The webbing film can be ironed on to any fabric or surface as a background and can be easily tucked and folded to create texture, but BEWARE it is very fragile.

Fibre Film

You will need:

• Parchment paper folded in half with fusible film on one half
• A stash of fibre scraps (this is a  2L maxwell and williams vase I was given.  DH never brings me flowers so I might as well get some eye candy out of it this way)
• 
• A lint roller
• An iron or press
• A Silicone mat or extra parchment paper

How to make your film
Place your folded parchment and webbing on top of the silicone sheet on your ironing surface (my finger is touching the web)

Grab a wad of fibre from your stash.  You can be picky about colours or not.  Here are two balls, one mostly green and a mixed one with a lot of gold.

 Roll the wad into a ball between your fingers

Cut small tufts of fibre off onto the webbing

Spread out any thick areas with your fingers Too much thread in any area, will not stick!

You are done whn you think you are done

Close the top layer of parchment down

Iron - it may help your iron if you add another piece of parchment, especially if your original rectangle is not square.

Allow the parchment sand wich to cool completely and then peel the top layer back

When the webbing has set, carefully peel off the  film, taking care with the edges.  You may find it is easier to wait a day or so - if you can

and you have a beautiful piece of film. 

Take care not to fold the film side on to itself as it may stick together and not come apart!  It is best to store the film in it's little booklet  of parchment until you need it.


What to use it for
Basically anything.  This film, bonded to another surface, could be entrapped in the same way as in the zippered journal cover.  It could be used for texture in landscapes, as  grass, leaves, rock, water, you are only limited by your imagination.  Because it is fusible webbing you could paint it before fusing the fibres (I will cover painting fusible in a later blog).  You could do any number of heat treatments (ditto).  The bottom line is it is a quick, easy and cheap way to add texture to fibre art.
Below is a quick 5 minute card I made using some shot organza, and a piece of fibre film on cardstock.  Now all it needs is some embellishment relevant to the person it is for and it will be a beautiful card!

Tomorrow, I will blog about some WIPs and until then, happy Fibrecating!