Making

A nice rain brought a much deserved break in roofing. I was going to feel a bit guilty if I could have a day of art making while Daddy-O needed to work away on the roof project –it’s much easier with two people. The rain provided the perfect excuse to jump right into some painting on cloth making some Botanicals Art Cloth. Growing around the house are huge ferns and other lovely greens. I plucked several leaves from the ferns, Lily of the Valley and Rhubarb to make leaf prints on 100% cotton batik. For the first pass onto the fabric I used fabric paints and acrylic paints painted directly onto the leaves. Using a brayer I rolled over a protective piece of newsprint, imprinting onto the fabric. I’m finding I have the most success with layering the various colors because the first pass looks a bit flat to me. I also mixed in metallic acrylic paints and hand paint fun details. The next step will be to add some cool image transfers that I’ll either apply directly OR iron on a contrasting fabric and then sew onto the first layer. I hung the fabric outside on lines I strung across the covered deck to dry –otherwise the painted fabric tends to stick to the newsprint. I liked seeing the colorful painted fabric squares flap in the breeze. Some FAB new art supplies from Blaines were wonderful to work with! Check out the photo below of the art paper, pearlescent paint (Genesis Green -one of my favorite colors), the Acrylic Paint Markers(!) from Montana, beautiful Lumiere and Neo Opaque acrylics by Jacquard that gave perfect coverage on the fabric, and finally a good quantity of metallic acrylic paint by Daler-Rowney.  

FAB, new art supplies I bought at Blaines -check out the beautiful PAPER below the supplies. I'm going to SEW it onto some art cloth! The woven PAPER in the background has this rough and stiff texture, I'm going to sew it too! The Acrylic Pens are by Montana -really fun to use.

Some of the finished Art Cloth I've been working on! The Botanicals were from greens around the house. The Halibut fish print was using one of my rubber molds and a brayer with Acrylic fabric paints. The sea stars were made using shapes I cut from foam and hand painted on FW liquid acrylic paints. All Art Cloth is painted onto approx. 13-14" x 13-14" 100% cotton batiks.

All this art making is making for a VERY messy studio! Not exactly ready for a magazine photo shoot -the Virgo in me is going crazy but the artist in me is VERY satisfied.

The front garden is finally in but these cool/warm/cool again temps are confusing my plant starts.  (sigh). It does provide a nice view from the studio window.