So here’s the piece I created:

Watercolor crayons screen printed with tinted medium. Colored with colored pencils and stitched with hand-dyed threads.

…and here’s my Molly cat who likes to hang out with me while I work.

What was in that box of fiber surprise? Silk, lots of forms of very white silk. I don’t have anything against silk, I had never really worked with the stuff before. Cotton is cheap, I go with cheap, I mean cotton. So I take the box over to Lynn because she offers me paint that will work on silk. She hands me several bottles of Dyna-flow silk paint. Lots of lovely colors (similar tastes) to work with and banish the whiteness of the silk forever. I prefer dark, bold, earthy colors and white is not on that color palette.

So I painted all the silk, several times over.

The fourth pic above is a cotton fusible fabric. Yup, painted it too.

Then I tackled this fabric labeled ‘Spunbond’. Fibers not of nature. I cut off a little strip to run some tests  on. Yes, it melts really well with heat. Interesting when it melts but that wasn’t what I was going for. I liked the texture and its translucency. So I broke out the watercolor crayons and scribbled away the white.

Then I took a wet brush to it and blended the colors, adding more color as I went. The water caused the color to sink down into the surface. Once it dried, I painted the surface with fabric paint. Some places just a little bit of paint and other places lots of paint. Light painting stayed on the top of the fabric surface, leaving the watercolor crayon color below in the crevices. Hence, you get a few levels of different colors. Groovy stuff. If I didn’t care for the watercolor in a certain area I just added a lot of paint and filled in the crevices.

And because I must, I whipped out a Thermofax Screen after the paint dried and screen printed the dry Spunbond surface. Used the scuff method as named & demoed by Lynn in one of her Quilting Arts articles.

I’ll admit that when I was in the last days of the project I realized that I had forgotten the silk roving. Outta sight – outta mind. It had fallen behind some of my kid’s toys. But I found it and attacked it with colors.

I also threw in the silk rods and cocoons. The roving had a bit of a stiffness in areas when it dried. So I thinned it out and screen printed some designs on it, then cut it into squares. There are a few more details I could include but towards the end things kind of went into high speed and I didn’t take a lot of pics. Feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be happy to fill you in.

The rods were ironed flat and cut. The cocoons were painted a few more times then cut into little bitty squares.

Every thing was assembled onto a partially gesso’ed canvas.

And here is the final piece. It looks better in person. But I won’t be seeing this piece for many months. C&T is keeping it to help decorate their trade booth when they do shows.

You can also find the photos piece over on C&T Publishing’s Flickr page. You can get your very own bag of Artful Fibers in June of 2012.

First up is the fabric flip journals. There are many more than what is shown here. They aren’t hard to make just rather step intensive with lots of pieces. Most of it is hand-dyed fabric with Thermofax screen printing. The others (not shown) are made from commercial fabrics, in an effort to clean out the stash.

Second up are the coasters. Lots of coasters in many different fabrics. These ones are made from repurposed khaki pants. Add in a little creative stitching, screen printing and there you have them. I’m also working on some from the hand-dyed fabric and commercial fabric (again, using the stash).

I still need to purchase some display items before I can get them to the mall. But they should be arriving there within a week.

Here is the aftermath of a rather large project I’ve completed recently, but unfortunately this is all I can show you.  It came out great! But that is all I can say for now. It has also been quiet because I’ve been doing the whole graphic design thing. I’ve been helping out the gallery that I show my work in by laying out ads for various print publications. I just finished a full page one for Detroit Hour magazine. I’ve never designed anything for such a big publication so I welcomed the opportunity to add it to the experiences on the resume. It comes out in December.

Also been working creating small product to sell this Christmas season. Lots of assembly line work making coasters, fabric flip journals and maybe bookmarks. Here’s just some of the fabric that is slowly being sewn into coasters. Some of it is commercial, some of it is hand-dyed, hand painted, some of it is recycled clothing.

I’ve been using quite a bit of the ProFab paint from Pro Chem. I love, love this stuff.

If you check out the clearance section on their website you can find an 8 oz jar of the paint for $2.95. The paint is smooth, with a bit of a pudding consistency and it works great for screen printing and painting. I’ve even mixed a few together to get my own colors. The brighter colors will stain screens and whatever else they come in contact with but it won’t clog screens if you don’t let it dry. I’ve only used the transparent so far (because that’s what’s in the clearance section) and the coverage is lovely. I work in layers so I usually want images or texture to show through the paint anyways.

My extra fabric that I keep handy to use up any paint left over from a project is really starting to fill up. It maybe worked into a project soon.

Oh! My friend Lynn and I got accepted to have a show in 2012. Super excited! I don’t know when its happening yet and I do know that I need to get crackin’ on some new big pieces. But before that, Halloween is next week and Batman’s costume needs to get shortened.

And I got a great stash of fabrics printed up. These are also fabrics that I’ve had in my stash for years. My plan is not to buy anything new for this holiday production stuff. We’ll see if I can stick to it.

Moments of Transition is in the blue and Interludes and Examination is in the orange & purple. Many methods employed in the making of these. Here’s the list: watercolor relief screen printing, hand dyed fabric and threads, thermofax screen printing, hand stitching, fabric paint, colored pencils and pens.

So here’s  a close up of one of my latest creations. Lots of different methods involved. It actually started with a scrap piece left over from one of my watercolor relief rubbing/screen printing projects. The background fabric (hand dyed) had been hiding out in my stash from a few years ago. The challenge was to make the two pieces work as one.

I’m working on several new projects, two of them will have these somehow intertwined. I love to create the visual texture of a piece. Something that appeals to the eye and the hand. People usually just want to touch my work and I’m cool with that. Just don’t pet it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I work, and how my pieces look when they are all done. The term ‘consistent body of work’ has been rattling around in my head lately. I think I’m well on my way to achieving this but there is a lot more work that needs to be done. I have  a tendency of over-think things sometimes and instead of just doing the work and letting those zen creative moments just happen. But I’m finding that when I do let those moments happen my work comes out with a very cohesive and consistent look. I have a lot of other things in my life to over-think and stress about, I’m going to try more doing and less stressing when it comes to the artwork. I find that I get more done that way.