Goldfish Fabric & Thermofax Screen Printing

I shared this fabric on Facebook but wanted to post it here as well.

And show what I did with it.

The fish are apx. 12 x 18 inches and in  bold, vibrant colors.

The fabric shop only had a yard left

I had a "Living Social" coupon for Tony's Fabric in Greenville SC that I bought almost a year ago. I had forgot about it to be honest and got an email reminding me ti use it before it expired.

When I walked in the front door, there was this beautiful and bold piece of fabric hanging on one of the showroom floor racks (insert choir of angels singing).

I was hooked (sorry, couldn't resist that pun).

I don't usually gravitate towards orange fabric but I'm guessing that the subject matter combined with the awesome color caught my eye.

I looked all over the (huge) store and couldn't find anything else I liked - until I committed to the goldfish fabric. They only had one yard of it left! So it was a good thing that I snagged it when I did.

I was able to find a few small pieces of random things to fulfill my coupon  at that point.

When I came home, I fanned the fabric over my couch and just admired it for a couple of days.
If I had a wall large enough to carry a frame that large, I'd just frame the entire yard and be happy with it that way. But I don't so I will use it in other large ways.

I plan on using one piece for a large sketchbook. I want to create a cover out of the fabric, using a whole piece to show off the beautiful fish design.

One thing that I did do already was to create a thermofax screen out of the fish - purely for personal use.
I won't be selling this screen since it isn't my design but I can use it for my own purposes.

It was a simple process (albeit a time consuming one) to convert a design like this into a design appropriate for a thermofax screen. It just takes a bit of trail and error messing with it in Photoshop (Elements for me).

I cropped out a single fish from the fabric (on a scan) and created a solid white background.
Some of the white I "poured" into the b/g crept into the lines of the fish.
That's great actually.

I messed around with the color curves until I was satisfied,
always looking for a good contrast in the white & black(ish) colors.
Notice that I did open up the lines between the head/tail/etc to
get more contrast.

It took two tries to get a good screen but I think that they final result is pretty cool.
This images is a little over 4 inches wide (the original fish design is about 18 inches). Of course, you can see m uch more detail "in person" than on this scan.

I printed this on a piece of vintage damask table cloth, then cut it out to use as a patch on the front of a small tote bag that I wanted to use.

I usually use journal pages to print on when I am auditioning a thermofax screen.
I love to use the images to draw into or paint over in my journal. It adds yet one more layer to the page.