More Pear Therapy

Red Pear No. 1

This year there have been plenty of red pears available at the local grocery stores. Today's simple painting is of a red pear, or I should say the memory of the red pear I ate.

Red Pear No. 2 Detail 2 from my pear stencil series.

Pears

Let there be pears, I would say more but I'm off to play with my new stencil in my studio tonight. The inspiration for this pear came from a red and green striped pear that our pear tree seems to be fond of producing, and I'm not sure what causes this to happen, however, it is really inspiring.

Somewhere in this mess of computer files I have a photo of the striped pears on the tree, this was one of the ones I picked for drawing and photographing in the studio.

I also cut this crow tonight.

Epic Fail Number One

I'm not sure if you can see the scribed lines or not, but the Cameo refused to cut all the way through the stencil film.

The good news is I have finally figured out some of the breaks on my designs, so once this issue of not cutting through the stencil film is resolved I'm good to go!

Getting Closer

Still messing with the settings in Silhouette Studio, but I'm getting closer to the desired result and soon a stencil shall be created!

And my pears are the correct size now, though I have to admit that ten inch pear would make a great stencil for fabric yardage!

Cutting Stencils

Cutting stencils, finally, with my Silhouette Cameo and it's harder than it looks.  Well it would have been easier if I had gone out to Silhouette's YouTube page first and watched a few of the beginning videos, ie like how to cut my very own designs.

So far I ended up with a ten inch pear, that was supposed to be six inches but I finally got the design board figured out, thanks to Silhouette's videos.

This would actually make a great mask on a silk screen for yardage, once it's cut out of stencil film and I may just have to do this.  See this post over at my old blog The Natural Surface on using stencils on fabric with paints, natural dyes, and more.

Queens Crows

I'm spending some time updating my website this week, creating new pages, adding back in some collections so on and so forth.  Now that I've had some time away from this particular body of work Queens Crows, I'm thinking of going back into it and pushing the panels to see what else I can gain from this series.

My stencil film finally arrived now I get to play with my Silhouette Cameo hopefully creating a new series of crow stencils for my Crows Follies series.

WIP Crows Folly

WIP Crows Folly No's 15-28

Next up more marks and some crows of course.  I was hoping to have some new crow stencils cut out using my Silhouette Cameo but alas I am still having issues with the program.  Soon though, as in next week after this Saturdays Open Studio Tour.  In the mean time I'm cleaning and putting out my Corn Stitched Stories Series for the Tour.

WIP More Black Birds

More crow panels in progress (Black Birds in Tree Stencil), when the paint dries I will be adding more layers and see where this leads.

I'm currently taking an online course on making my own fonts by hand, this is not like any calligraphy course I've ever taken, and hope that some of these designs make it into my artwork and soon.

Experimenting

Stenciling on natural dyed (tea and coffee) fabric.

I'm using purple and yellow acrylic paints and a stencil brush.

This while waiting for the screen printing supplies to arrive.  The bulb in my thermofax machine died and is no longer available, so on the advice of some trusted artist friends I've purchased Jacquards drawing fluid and filler to make silk screen designs.  The upside to this is I'll have large screens for screen printing natural dyes onto the cloth.

Black Birds in Trees

Working on some Crow Cards this afternoon using my Black Birds in Tree Stencil.

The orange mat is a non-slip artist map, unfortunately there is no label on the mat so I have no idea where it came from.

I started out with a piece of painted timtex that was painted by Seta Color Fabric Paints.  I will be adding some oil bar, ink, and other yummies next, and then it's time for some stitching.

WIP Dusk at the Marsh

I am working on a stitched story piece about one of my favorite local marshes and my stencil Black Birds in Tree are the main focus in this new series.  The marshes, Cooper's Marsh & Larson's Marsh, which is just a few miles east of Ames, Iowa, are surrounded by farmland.  

Seta Color Fabric paint on cotton fabric, I painted this fabric using a salt technique sometime around 2004/05. The orange piece is a non-slip gripping pad that holds the fabric in place while I surface the fabric.

I should be able to get four smaller pieces out of the larger piece of fabric, the piece directly above this photo.

For the purple stenciled areas I'm using Galleria thick body paint as it is less inclined to bleed. I applied the paint using a stencil brush and very thin layers of paint building the image up onto the fabric, why yes my hand is sore now!

Finished, the stencil did stick to the fabric, where it came into contact with the wet paint that soon dried.

I have to admit this is my all time favorite stencil in my series!  I will probably leave this particular piece of fabric as is for the moment and work on the other three pieces.  I am toying with using my inverse stencil on one of the pieces, more to come!

Organize Me!!!

I decided today to drop some coin on some studio organizational tools, I bought the Clip and Spin Organizer at Hobbly Lobby this evening.  I almost didn't make the purchase because I wasn't sure if I could fill it or not, now I see I should have purchased two of them!

Another thirty or so rubbing plates that I will clean up tomorrow, seems a mouse managed to make a nest in my storage tub, and will hang the remainder of these plates on the spinner.

I still have a dozen or so alphabet stencils that need to be hung on the spinner as well, yep it's really starting to look like I should have purchased two of these!  I have to admit it is really nice to have all of my stencils out where I can see them now, I have quite a few I forgot about that I could have used at Easter for cards and such.

My Black Birds in Tree Stencil looks so good  hanging on the organizer!  For damage control I backed most of the stencils with a sheet of paper to keep them from hooking onto the next stencil.

Yes, I definitely see another spinner in my near future!

Deconstructed Screen Printing with Natural Dyes and Stencils!

Materials List: 

Silk Screens

Squeegee for Silk Screen

Stencils

Natural Dye Extracts

Gum Tragacanth Binder

Containers to hold natural dye extracts/binder I used paper cups.

Plastic Spoons

Newspaper

Masking Tape

Fabric or Watercolor Papers

Products Used:

Black Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil

Links:

How-to make the Gum Tragacanth Binder Video

I am here today to show you how to use stencils with a silk screen and natural dyes for screen printing.

Instructions:

Mix up Gum Tragacanth with Natural Dye Extracts; see video for specific amounts and mixing instructions.  I made a little card with the names of the extracts I was working with and daubed a bit of the color next to each name, for future projects.

The Natural Dye Extracts blended with the Gum Tragacanth are now ready for printing!

Most silk screens won’t be the same size as your stencil, however, I have an easy fix for this problem.   Measure your screen and your stencil and then block off the required space for your stencil by taping news print to the FRONT of your silk screen.  Then tape your stencil to the front of the screen making sure to overlap the stencil onto the newsprint.

Blocked off silk screen, as seen from the front.

Blocked off silk screen as seen from the back.

Black Birds in Tree Inverse taped to the FRONT of the silk screen.

Place your natural dye binder medium onto the screen, towards the edge, this is known as “the well”.  Using your squeegee pull the medium in a firm manner across the screen, once you have reached the other side, pull the medium back towards yourself, do this several times adding more of the natural dye binder medium if needed until the color on the screen looks even.

Gently lift up the silk screen from your substrate, I used 300# cold press watercolor paper for this sample.

For this sample I used the same stencil and screen to print the image onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric that I had surfaced using my hand and earth pigments and fabric paint.

Printing onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.

If you wish for your fabric images to be free of bumps, etc., tape the fabric to your surface to keep it from moving, etc., while printing.  I prefer an organic and whimsical look and therefore don’t tape my fabric to my table.

Birds in Tree with Madder Lac

Madder lac natural dye extract screen printed, using deconstructed screen printing techniques with my Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil, onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.

Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil taped to the front of a traditional silk screen for deconstructed screen printing!  Stay tuned for more on this technique!!!

Learn more about these techniques in my eBook and Video series 

Mark Making with Nature!!! 

A Crow Project

Crow Stencil  from StencilGirl Products outlined in Pitt Pen with Shiva Paintstiks in iridescent copper and white, on madder lac dyed silk organza layered over white silk dupioni fabric.  Timtex core with white cotton backing.  Machine and hand stitching.

The paintstiks don't show up well in this photo, will take a photo tomorrow using natural light.

Black Birds in Progress

I'm still in the layering of paint and ink stage, I will be adding more layers tomorrow and then hopefully finishing out the birds.

Black Birds in Tree stencil can be purchase through StencilGirl Products!