Monotype printing on fabric

I was playing with mono printing on fabric recently and decided to use the images to make journal pages like I do in my art journal. I used stitching in place of the doodles I would normally do but then still added quotes as I love to do. I used any fabric paint I could find in the colors I needed. Some were Lumieres, and others were Jaquard fabric paints.

This was my first mono print using a girl stencil I made some time ago. When it was dry I used a swirl stencil to add more pattern. The blue dots are Quality Street chocolate wrappers. When I ironed them under a non stick sheet they wrinkled up into an interesting stiff material that was easy to stitch. A good excuse to eat chocolate in my opinion. I outlined the images with machine stitching and hand stitched the quote.

This mono print was a little more complicated to do. I started with a previously printed piece of fabric and did the mono prints on top of that. The trees and top section were done first then I put more paint on the printing plate and used torn paper to mask the sections I didn't want to print. I printed each layer separately. It is hard to see with this photo but the quote was hand stitched in two colors for interest. I added a few wools and cottons as well.

When I do mono printing I usually get two prints. The first one is printed normally then after I removed the masks from the plate I spritz it with water and do another print on different fabric. This time I used plain white fabric and the colors are much brighter. I decorated with hand embroidery and stamped words this time.

The center of this wall hanging is the second print I got when I did the landscape above. I liked it so much I decided to make this art quilt. After the quilting, some of the patterns didn't stand out enough so I used paint to extend the central image and high light the quilting. I also used stencils on this one to do extra circles and some scrolls.

I made the branch using gold wire for the leaves. I covered it with fabric strips but it didn't look like a branch so I wrapped strips of brown painted Lutrador over the top of the fabric and used a heat gun to melt it and make it look like bark. The gold leaves became almost invisible against the wall so I used alcohol ink to make them darker.

Art journal pages for DLP

 My intention to blog weekly went a little astray last week. Our main computer died suddenly even though it is a SSD drive that is supposed to be extremely reliable. The computer guy who built it said it was the first time he had seen a broken one in 20 years of working. We were just unlucky I guess. Fortunately I have the backup set up to run weekly so we only lost a few documents and none of our photos. It did take a long time to download all our programs again and set them up the way I like. If you haven't done a back up recently I urge you to do one soon.

 Now that I am back I will share some more journal pages. These are more of the Documented Life Project pages.

The challenge for this page was silhouettes and the prompt was "no shadow without the light". I used a credit card to scrape paint across the page for the background then used a stencil to do the flowers silhouette. I used a marker to fill in the lines of the stencil so it was a solid shape.

The art challenge here was to use deli paper. It is a very thin tissue paper with a waxy feel on one side. The waxy side is actually a thin coat of plastic. You can paint on either side but sometimes the paint comes off the waxy side. I used some monoprints I had done previously and just added the quote. It was a very quick page.

The challenge for this one was to use vellum and the prompt was "Sheer genius". I drew the big butterfly on vellum with a permanent marker then all the little ones too. I colored it in on the back using water-based markers so the colors are a little muted. I stitched the vellum butterfly onto white paper, I cut it out and glued it to the page. The page looked a little bare so I added the border as  finishing touch.

Sometimes I surprise myself with the ideas that pop into my head when I find a quote like this one. I would never have dreamed I could do this sort of page a few years ago.

I will probably share a some of the textiles I have been playing with next week so I hope to connect with you then. 

Art journal pages

 The monthly theme for the Documented Life Project is color safari (exploring inks and paints).

 The DLP prompt for this week was water under the bridge and the challenge watercolor. Sometimes I have trouble with specific prompts so I am now just picking one word as my prompt. For this one it was bridge. I gessoed the page and when it was dry sketched the page then used watercolor to paint.  I used a bit of salt in the water and added extra sparkles with a white pen.

 The prompt I used was river and the challenge was acrylics. This is all acrylics and marker for the writing. I bought a really cheap set of acrylics (at Target) to try out and that is what I used here. They worked fine but are a little more transparent then artist grade paints. I think that will be good when I am journaling because the first layers will show through. They will be great to experiment with in my journals.

I didn't use a prompt this week because I wanted to do a tribute for Anzac Day. The challenge was to use a gelli plate so I did. I used printing inks because they don't dry as quickly as paint and it allows you more time to prepare your image before you print. I did the background first with some ink brayered onto the plate. When it was dry I used a paintbrush to put blobs of red ink on the plate for the flowers. I used two colors so some would appear darker. I did small flowers at the top, gradually getting bigger as I came down the page. It adds depth. I printed the flowers on another page then sprayed with water and did a second print on this page. I liked the soft look of the second print more so that is the one I decided to keep. I used colored pencils for the centers, stems and some shading to separate the flowers. I added the words and the page was done.

The final ICADs for 2014

The theme this week was paint. I decided to go free and not do prompts this last week. I did use book paper on most of the cards as well as acrylics.

 I highlighted a few words from the bookpaper and then quickly painted a few birds.

Another simple card made with strips of book paper.  I used Golden paints (yellow ochre and diox purple) and then finished off with mica spray. 

Angel was one of the prompts for the week so I sketched a quick one for this card. 

I used a stencil over the green paint to do the flowers, and outlined them with gold pen. I added a little gold embossing for interest. 

I used the stencils I made for the mono printing course to print my final card for the year. It turned out a little messier than I wanted but that is ok. It seems I have forgotten some of what I learned already. Lucky I have the videos to watch again.

ICAD has been a fun challenge to take part in again. It has been good to do small cards while I have been under the weather. I now want to do a few more random things so keep an eye out for more postings about that.

Printing workshop

Today I am sharing some of the prints I did when I took an online class at the start of the year about gelatin printing. The class was a lot of fun and run by Linda Germain (http://www.lindagermain.com/workshops/). It was called Making monotypes. This is not the typical gelatin plate printing that you see in the mixed media world. We did make gelatin plates to print on but the art making was very different. We were making finished images, not backgrounds.

I have not done any printing before so it was a big learning curve for me. I absolutely loved the class and will use what I learned in the future. I found it easy to follow and learn from the teacher. There were loads of videos, mostly short so I didn't have to spend a lot of time watching them. I did get better results as the course went on and as I got more used to the way the inks worked.  It is a skill that takes practice to master but I feel like I learned enough to keep experimenting and learning as time goes on.

We used plants and other objects to make our first prints. I thought it was fun looking around for things that would make good prints.

Another technique we learned was making our own images. I did make mistakes along the way but it helps me to never do that again. Can you see the bottom print where one layer was printed upside down, lol?

 We learned how to make prints more interesting with extra layers.

More experiments with nature printing.

A series of prints I made at the half way point of the class.  I was experimenting a lot with colours and layers throughout the class. It helps me find the colours that I liked the most.

One part of the course I really liked was drawing our own images to print. I loved doing birds. 

 We learned how to make a print with a border. It is more difficult than I thought and quite hard to keep the border clean.  It is a skill that gets easier with practice. 

 We experimented with printing on different types of paper. I liked printing on textured paper a lot. This was a lithograph paper and it took the inks really well. We also printed onto book paper.

Using multiple colours and images to make a complete picture was one of the main skills we learned.

 I seem to be making a lot of pictures with birds in them lately. The birds that live in our street are a major source of inspiration to me.

I don't only use birds though. All of these prints are beginner prints but I can see the potential of this art form. I had so many ideas as the class went on. I will be practicing a lot.

I will recommend this online class to you if these types of monoprints appeals to you. I found the attention given by Linda was more personal and more often than any other class I have done. She was always there to help and made many extra videos addressing problems that came up as we did the course.  Linda did limit the number of people that could sign up for the class at one time so she could respond to everyone as needed. I think that was a great idea.

This was my final online class for a while. I have decided that I need to do more of my own art this year, as well as more of the other projects that I have been putting off for a while. I will still be sharing the creative things I do here, it is something I love to do.