Thursday, 11 April 2013

A Gorilla in the midst

I have a Gorilla mad friend who had a birthday the other day and surprisingly turned 21 again! So I then hit the dilema of what do you get someone who seems to have everything you think of ? There are a few credentials to work with.... purple, gorillas, that can narrow things down quite a lot! Then I hit upon the idea of a handprinted scarf which I'm sure you have guessed it will be both purple and include Gorillas!

Printing materials.
Original printout and first print from the block.
I started with a print out from the computer, some scissors, glue, foam and cardboard. I traced the picture and very patiently cut it out and glued it onto some card . You can see the original print at the top of the second picture with the printing block and the test print on paper at the bottom. I used 50/50 acrylic and textile medium to print the image onto both the paper and fabric.
First fabric print on some scrap fabric.

The scarf itself was backed with some nice warm fleece, unfortunately I only had white to hand, but it could have done with being black really. Anyway it was received as it was intended and I think she was very happy with it despite being white on the back!
The first scarf print.




The finished scarf.

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Parfait dyeing ........take 2

Lots of dyeing took place the other day. I have always painted and have mixed colours in many different mediums so it intrigues me as to why I find the mixing and application of dye to fabric so fascinating. I think part of it is the way it takes on a life of its own. The technique of dyeing in plastic bags give fabrics a mottled texture, parfait dyeing creates unique fabrics with different colour combinations every time. If you just played with the same three colours you will always get a new and exciting combination of pattern and colour appear every time you emptied that jar.

Below are some of the parfait jars I set up and the resulting fabrics.

The fabric for the first jar is on the left of this photo, the piece on the right was just left over dye on wet fabric.
Yellow Magenta and Turqouise Parfait



Green, Orange and Purple Parfait
Orange Parfait Fabric
Purple Parfait

Green Parfait

Dyed fabric drying on the line

Fascinating stuff! I have bought wax and other things to play with so a whole new world is about to open up, watch this space!!

Bye for now.