Mystery revealed

It is time to reveal the mystery of Friday:

I started with a lwi dyed fabric. Next step was to use torn paper strips and screen print this using green metallic paint. This picture shows you how dominant that layer was - it is now the back of the fabric :-).

The fabric needed another layer and for this I used again torn paper, but this time in circles and screen printed them on the other side of the fabric. The stripes of the first screen print layer are still visible but softer.

I love the ideas you all came up with. Nobody had it correct, so I picked Jody as the winner of this fabric. Please email your snail mail address to: wil@wilopiooguta.com

As this is the last blogpost of the months January/February it is also time to reveal the winner of our ebook Playing with Fire.

Out of all the comments which were given to the mystery techniques I picked a comment of February 4 posted by Sarah. Sarah will you email me at wil@wilopiooguta.com and I will tell you how you can get your copy of the ebook.

For everybody else who wants to buy this ebook. Here is the link: https://gumroad.com/l/iLbHI.

I hope you all had fun these months and are inspired to use some of the techniques Kelly and I showed you.

Wil

Mixed media

There are many materials you can use in combination with your fiber art, but admit it, concrete will not be your first idea :-). A couple of years ago I made these 2 small canvasses - each 8"x8". I started with embroidery stitches, or making marks, using perle cotton on hand dyed fabric. Wrapped these around canvas and stapled them.

Next step was to mix up concrete. I did not want the regular grey, so instead of using water, I mixed the concrete powder with paint. The color will not be as bright as the paint as the concrete of course is grey and this will show through. With an old credit card I swiped the concrete/paint mixture over the canvas. I wanted to have some of the original fabric visible. so I made certain that enough of the fabric still showed.

I like the unusual effect I got and I think there are more options to play with this combination of soft and hard material.

Next blogpost will be by Kelly and will be another mystery technique.

Mystery revealed

You all came with very interesting suggestions, but nobody had it correct. Unfortunately I did not take pictures during the creation of this fabric. I had planned to do something similar this weekend, but I have the flu and my body said no. This is how I did it:

- I started with a parfait fabric.
- Next step was a leaves linocut and thiox discharge. When you use thiox, do this in a well ventilated area, as the fumes are toxid!
- Third step was to apply a thin layer of paint on a copper tjap using a foam roller and stamp leaves all over. The tjaps show lots of tiny details which most stamps do not show.

As there was no correct guess, I picked Bethany as the winner for this week. Please send  your snail mail address to: wil@wilopiooguta.com

New mystery technique

The mystery fabric of this week is a complex cloth, 3 techniques have been used in it.

Coming Monday I will tell you more about how I made this fabric. Publish your idea of how I did it in the comments below this post. I will draw a lucky winner in the next blog post. And don't forget by publishing a comment you will be entered in the draw for our e-book.

Some more drizzle dye

Here are 2 other ways of using drizzle dye. The first piece of fabric is a halfyard, which was hung on a drying rack. With a syringe blue dye mixture was applied to the fabric. After it had run down, the fabric was turned around and the same process was done with a yellow dye mixture. This is how it turned out:

Besides dye, you can also use bleach in your syringe. This is a commercial black fabric on which I drizzled tiny quantities of bleach. Don't you love this result? Unfortunately I was never able to find this same black fabric anymore.

These were my 3 posts of this week. Coming Friday Kelly will show a new mystery technique.

Mystery revealed

This is how I created the mystery fabric of last Friday. I placed a soda soaked piece of fabric on a plexiglass sheet which was standing in a container. The wet fabric created lots of wrinkles.

Using a small syringe I drizzled small quantities of dye mixture from the top. Because of the wrinkles the dye followed erratic paths.

After it was washed and dried it looked like this. I love this technique which I call drizzle dye to make fabric for skies.

With this piece of fabric I stopped after the blue, the fabric I showed on Friday I continued with different colors. Normally a syringe is used to apply 60 or 120 or bigger quantities of dye mixture to fabric, but using a small syringe gives you lots of play opportunities. 

There were a lot of people who guessed correctly. I picked Pam as the winner for this week. Pam, please email me your address to: wil@wilopiooguta.com.

Mystery technique

So glad that my internet connection is working again, it is still a bit iffy but at least I am connected to the world again :-). Here is my mystery technique for this week:

I don't think it is very difficult this time. Tell me in a comment which technique you think it is. Don't forget your comment might be the one which wins our new e-book. Coming Monday I will tell you how I made this fabric.

Lino print

This is lino print of cone flowers which I did on green fabric. Don't ask me why the picture shows up in blue :-). I am not going into the details of how to do lino prints, there are excellent online courses on this subject. This print is 12"x12" and I intend to complete it with hand embroidery

Hopefully I can show you more result of this fabric later in February.

Mystery revealed

And this is how I create the mystery fabric of last Friday. I started with a wet white fabric and crunched this.

If you want to you can iron it with all the creases, but that is not compulsary.

Place a screen on it.

And apply paint with a squeegee.

Remove the screen and let the paint dry.

When you unfold the fabric, it looks like this:

I repeated this process several times with different colors of paint. Just like Kelly I do not like white backgrounds, so the final step was a ice dye with different colors of procion dye.

And the winner of this fabric is: Silkworks922. Please send an email with your contactinfo to: wil@wilopiooguta.com. I am moving house this week and will be without internet access for maybe a week. Don't think I am ignoring your comments or questions, I will answer when I am back on line.

Mystery technique

Today is Friday and that means time for a new mystery technique. Here is the fabric:

It is up to you all to take a guess at what techniques (2) I used to create this fabric. Leave your answer in the comments below. Coming Monday I will reveal how it was made and who is the lucky winner of this fabric

Let The Sun Shine!

YES....finally!! That bright shiny orb in the sky deigned to appear in my part of the upper midwest! And about time!! I was beginning to worry about growing moldy!

So I got to do some sunprinting! I did some "old school" stuff with SetAColor but I just HAD to try out this technique with regular paint! Had never done that before or even heard of it.  PLAY TIME!!

Here are the results I had with the SetAColor:

Cheesecloth (with some diamonds)

Serendipity Cheesecloth (NO idea where the blue came from!)

Washers and Concentric Circles

Lacey Tablecloth

Then I did several pieces with regular paint (in these cases mostly Lumiere paints)

Bubble Wrap Experiment (both sizes)

Bubble Wrap (lg) with Pleats

Saran Wrap Loose Scrunch

Saran Wrap Tight Scrunch

Grasses (recently pulled from beside the road)

This one is destined for a piece I'm going to be starting soon for a show. It is done on a piece of Dupioni silk I had sunprinted with SetAColor a couple of years ago. You can see the original look of the piece at the bottom left.

My friend visiting me also did sunprinting with regular paint (acrylics and Lumiere in this case). This is for a whole cloth piece to be entitled "Blue Moon".  Don't you just LOVE the serendipity of the paint seeping under the freezer paper circle for the moon!?! Looks like an ethereal cloud creeping across the moon.  The water was done by scrunching.

STAMPING - Now I know I'm a bit later with this entry but I have had some time to stamp as well.  Here are my pieces...

This piece was stamped with a bit cut out of the bottom of a veggie tray from the grocery store.

My effort at Shadow Printing. Used a computer bit for this one (one of my favorite stamps!)

And finally...my stamping with Ramen Noodles. This is for a piece entitled "Cat Among Pidgeons"

All in all a VERY fun and productive few days!  Thanks to the instructors for the inspiration!! I'll be doing more for sure.

Pounded Fabric - The Magic

Now for the results! After the fabric is completely dry, iron it and it is ready to use. (Several days in "real life") Here is the black Kona with the metallic paints I did for this demonstration.

Pounded Fabric right out of the plastic bag when totally dry.

Whole piece of Pounded Fabric after ironing

Close-up of Pounded Fabric

I also did a purple hand-dyed piece I wanted to show as another example. But this is an example of what happens if the fabric is too dry.  It IS a painted piece of fabric and definitely usable...but the fabric was too dry to assist in the capillary action between enough water and the paints. Those beautiful little feathery veins are very few. Oh it WILL get used for sure.  So as with so many surfacing techniques, all is not lost.  There are always alternatives!! And some accidents are quite wonderful. Even if you don't get the pounded fabric right the first time, you have not wasted anything!

Here is a piece I recently completed entitled "Deep Space."  The background fabric for this is a piece of black Kona pounded with different metallic paints. This is why I don't have any black pounded fabric left. It was just too perfect for this theme!!

Deep Space

I also used some pounded fabric on two pieces in my recent "Pecans" series. I love using pounded fabrics in a collection of surface designed pieces because the look is so different.

In "Emergence" I used some blue/green pounded fabric in the textile portion of this piece.

Emergence

Emergence (detail)

And in "Winter Harvest" in this series, I used another piece of the blue/green pounded fabric and a couple of bits of the black Kona/metallic pounded fabric.

Winter Harvest

Winter Harvest (detail)

I hope you have enjoyed this technique and will give it a try next time you have some leftover paint (or just feel like making some of this beautiful fabric). The combinations of fabric and paint are so many!! You can also vary the amount of paint used for a more subtle look. Most of all....Have fun!!

Pounded Fabric - The Process

OK...do you have all your tools ready?  Here we go!  I've chosen a black Kona fabric and some metallic paints. I've done this process before and love the results. I just used up the last piece so I'm out to make some more for future projects. I'm also doing a piece of purple hand dyed to show you some things as well.

Step One

Wet the fabric you will be using. It should be thoroughly wet then wring it out enough that it doesn't drip and isn't soaking wet. Don't get it too dry or the capillary process won't work as well.  So....somewhere between not dripping wet and not totally wrung out to the just damp stage.

Step Two

Place the wet fabric in the plastic bag.  Roll down the sides a bit to make it easy to get to the fabric. It should be placed loosely in the bag...not a tight little ball.

Step Three

Pour out your paints on whatever palette you prefer. You can keep them separate or mix them. They will become a bit mixed anyway when you pound them.

Step Four

Take your paint brush and wet it. Then moosh it into some of the paint.  Then begin to literally pound it into the fabric. You will want to turn the fabric and be sure it gets to most or all of the surface. Keep in mind, this really is a wet process. You don't really want the straight undiluted paint on the fabric. The water is what creates the beautiful effects.

Step Five

Loosely tie the top of the bag and place it in a warm place to dry out. I put mine in my supply/batching closet. This process can take several days.  It is best if you just forget about it for several days. If it is very slow in drying out, you might want to loosen the tied top a good bit.  It needs to get totally dry but not in a hurry. The magic happens during a slow, several days drying time.

Tune in tomorrow to see the results and an example of a piece used in an art quilt.

My friend, Wil, who showed me this technique is joining me to show you some of her results as well. I hope we can inspire you to recycle your paints and perhaps some leftover fabrics into a beautiful example of this surfacing technique!