Sun Printing with SolarFast - Stamping & Shibori

Yep, there's still more you can do with SolarFast(SF)!  As with our previous posts on sun printing this  month, you can basically use SolarFast (SF) in much the same manner.

 I took some leaves and brushed on Black SF to the back of the leaves then placed them on top of my hand dyed (dry) fabric.  I used my brayer to 'stamp' the leaves.


I removed the leaves and set the entire piece of fabric out in the sun (on my foam board).

I also just painted SF in spots and then laid some metal washes on top of the fabric.  

I did not try just painting the fabric and then laying leaves on top as Lynda showed in her post(s) this month for sun printing.  I would think you  need to lay glass on the leaves or make sure the leaves were really flush with the fabric.  That's pretty much the same technique for any sun prints.   As you can see the metal washes showed up nicely but they are heavier than leaves and didn't blow away.  

Same as before, make sure you bring your piece inside once you've removed your objects.  

Now on to one of my favorite dyeing techniques!  Shibori!! SF worked great on this technique and no mess or presoaking fabrics!!  

This was a piece of Shibori I did last summer using Orange SF on white fabric (wrapped around a PVC pipe)


And another small shibori piece using Red SF that I did this year (again wrapped on PVC pipe).

The red area you see on the left was SetaColor.  I just wanted to see if that paint would soak through, which it did.

So for my next Shibori piece, I took a hand dyed fabric, which wasn't the most exciting fabric, and.   wrapped  it around a  3" PVC pipe.  I used a cheap paint brush and then painted the entire piece using Black SF.

p.s.  It was wrapped on the diagonal on the tube.

Shibori sunning!

And my results!  Not a bad piece!

For this piece, I painted the entire piece with Black SF, then wrapped it (diagonally) on the pole, then scrunched it.  Because it was wet and this pole was quite small in diameter (1 1/2") I didn't need to wrap string around it.  I did keep turning it as it was laying on my foam board and not standing up.

This turned out pretty cool too!

I think by painting the fabric first, the intensity of the sun printing was better??  Not really sure as both the last two pieces sat in the sun for the same amount of time.  I'll probably experiment more with Shibori and SF just because it's not messy...quick to do and cleanup a snap.  Washing out the dye is a snap compared to MX dyes too.   

So I'm nearing the end of my posts...one more to go and I hope you stop by for that one!  I'm going to show how you can use SolarFast on other substrates!!!  Again, if you have any questions, please email me or check out Jacquard's web site.