Sun Prints

Have you ever tried sun-printing fabric?  It's one of my favorite things to do on a sunny summer day. I use Setacolor paint.  Just wet some white cotton fabric, apply some diluted Setacolor paints with a sponge brush, and let them dry in the sun with some botanicals on top.

When the fabric and paint are dry, the areas covered by the leaves and petals will look like a shadowy white print.

Speaking of botanicals, we met our son Dave's family at the Raleigh Rose Garden on Sunday evening for a pre-new-baby-Layla family photo shoot.  I got lots of inspiration for future paintings or artwork.

Here are Dave, Emily, and granddaughter Charlotte.

Charlotte is looking forward to becoming a big sister next month!

Surface Embellishment Round Robin

Today was our first pretty day since Hurricane Sandy hovered over the east coast.  My prayers go out to those who lost their loved ones or their homes in this amazing storm.  From winds to floods to snowstorms to fires, this was one mighty wreaker of havoc.  All we got here in Central North Carolina was some rain, lots of wind, and cold.  There was enough snow in the mountains to close down Appalachian State University in Boone.

So, today I started working on a new challenge.  My Anything Art bee has started a round robin Surface Design challenge.  Each participant starts with a yard of plain white fabric, and sends it to the next person on the rotation.  She can include a journal to describe what processes and materials are used.  I suggested that each person photograph the fabric when she has done her part.  I think this will be super fun and will yield some very unique layered fabrics!

 

After the days of gray weather, I decided to get right down to it with some bright colors.  First I wet the fabric and sponged on Setacolor Transparent paint in yellows, blue, and fuchsia.  I worked on a piece of poster-sized foam board covered with a garbage bag. 

 

 

A yard is a lot of fabric to hand-paint.  I ended up doubling the fabric over itself to print some of the color on bare areas.  Then I carried the whole thing out to the driveway.  Darn!  The sun was hidden behind clouds by the time I got out there.  I went ahead and put down some stencils, leaves, and flowers to try printing. 

 

Then the wind picked up, and I started putting down rocks to hold the fabric in place.  I could already see that the objects were printing. despite the hidden sunlight.

I got out some latex gloves to wear during all this, but of course did not put them on before painting.   I am going to my quilt bee tonight, and will have to get busy removing paint from my fingernails.

 

Might do some more printing before this is finished.  I like to add more paint with a sponge brush over the objects once they are in place.  Can't wait to see how this turns out!

And it was SO much fun to do some fabric design again!

 

 

Sun Prints

Since the weather was still beautiful yesterday morning, and I had not put away all the paints I dragged downstairs for the art quilt bee, I just had to do a little more fabric painting. This time I used Setacolor transparent paints to do some sun-printing. They looked so pretty with their leaves and blossoms...I wish the colors of the "flora" transferred to the fabric, too!

I also worked on some customer quilts that I have not photographed yet. One more to go for this customer, then I will post pictures of her adorable quilts for her grandchildren.

Painting Fabric

Yesterday was hot and dry, but not as humid as the weekend. Perfect weather for fabric painting!

I gathered up my stuff and spent the afternoon on the screen porch, where I paint on a glass table that wipes up easily. All of these pieces were painted with Setacolor transparent paints. Some of them are sun-printed. Just apply paint, place some leaves, flowers, pasta or whatever on top, and let them dry flat in the sun.

I used those one inch sponge daubers for most of the paint application. I pick them up when they are on sale at Michael's at twelve for a dollar. This one is printed with seashells and pasta.

Leaves from thyme. It smells nice!

Marigold leaves, ageratum blossoms, daylily stamens

The scarlet pieces are not sun-printed. These mostly resulted because I can't stand to leave paint on the palette, so I keep extra muslin on hand to use it up. I actually wiped the paint palette with the mult-colored piece.

I also transformed a piece of ugly hand-dyed fabric with Shiva paint sticks. That one is still curing.

While I was painting, the mail arrived with a timely DVD: Painting Fabric for Wholecoth Quilts with Judy Coates Perez. It was on sale from Interweave Press.

I stopped my slap-dash paint slopping to watch a true artist achieve lovely results with fabric paint. You get a template with the outline of the painting with the DVD. I could not get it to download from the Internet, but Interweave very helpfully e-mailed the template to me this morning.

I also received a lovely gift in the mail. You may remember the group comfort quilt that I made with other members of my Pamela Allen art quilt online class. There were twelve blocks, and the recipient made us each a 2010 photo calendar with the blocks from her quilt. It's in Norwegian, but she sent a little translation dictionary. I am thrilled with it! Here is Sherryl Buchler's block.

And here is Pamela Allen's.

What a lovely thank-you gift! In case you are wondering about the eighth column: no, Norway does not have eight days a week like the early Beatles suggested. The last column tells you what week of the year it is. I have never seen that feature on a calendar. Now, I will just have to get used to the week starting on Monday next year! The two weekend dates are in red, so that will help me get my mind around the change.