Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Spring cleaning and some Thermofax screen experiments

It's not only yard work that gets in the way of art making; there's spring cleaning too! I did some cleaning this morning, taking time in between to do a little fabric painting. I got a bunch of new screens from Margaret Applin and I've been anxious to try an idea that I had.
I screened a few images onto fabric using acrylic matte medium as a resist. I let them dry and then sponged on transparent fabric paints.

Since this method works on paper, I decided to give it a try on fabric. As you can see above, when wet, it looks good. The effect fades as the fabric dries and fades.

There is still some texture but the definition is lost. I will try it again, making sure to coat well and letting it dry longer. I definitely need to use more saturated paint.
Here is another sample just after painting it.

It looks so good, but again, faded a lot. Better than the First one though. Definitely usable, perhaps with more layering.

Here is another design again wet and saturated. It looks so good, but fades as it dries.

It will take a little more experimenting to get it right.
In conclusion, I need to:

1. Apply enough matte medium.
2. Make sure matte medium is well dried.
3. Use a heavily saturated transparent paint. I used Setacolor.

7 comments:

Kate said...

I am in awe of anyone who dyes there own fabric. I think you pieces are nice, even if they weren't quite what you expected.

elle said...

Go, Holly! This is gonna be exciting!

Margaret Applin said...

Woweeee!! You GO GIRL!!!!

Marjorie's Busy Corner said...

That's a shame...it is very pretty when wet

M-R Charbonneau said...

Very cool. Though they didn't dry as dark as you'd hoped, it looks like they would be great for layering, as you say. Where did you get your Thermofaxes done?

Mary Ann Tate said...

They look very nice even if not as dark as you would like. I look forward to your future experiments:)

In stitches and seams said...

your test fabrics look good to me..... I do not think any fabric you dye will ever be wasted. and good for you for tring i still have to get some things together to even get started at tring to dye some fabric
thanks for showing us what you have done
in stitches