Eco Prints

I've been experimenting with natural dyeing and eco printing.
What a ton of work but man-oh-man, when it begins to work the way you envisioned it, it is beautiful.
It is addictive.
It is all consuming.

Or maybe I am a bit OCD and once I find something I really like, I jump in with both feet.
Both hands.
Silk fabric.
Cotton fabric.
Organza.
Watercolor paper.
Handmade paper.
Bristol Vellum paper.

(you get the picture??)

Here are a few pieces that I ooh'ed and ahhh'ed over when they came out of my caldron.

300 lb hot press watercolor paper

300 lb hot press watercolor paper

110 lb Exact Index paper with beautiful muted colors
and embossed areas from the thicker leaves.

110 lb Exact Index paper with the same muted colors
and embossed areas.

 The paper really accepts the color from the monoprint much better than fabric.
Well -except eucalyptus...silk fabric not only accepts the color from the eucalyptus, it revels in the marriage of the two.
The first few times that I tried dyeing or printing with eucalyptus were disappointing.
Only pale yellows, maybe a hint of green.
The following one is on linen. While I do like the pale colors, I was really looking for the bold orange-ish color that I had seen other natural dyers obtain.

Then I began to break away from what I was reading and started doing things the way that I usually do...
the mad scientist way.
I combined a bit of information from this book, or this book, a little from a variety of blogs that I found, threw in a dash of (my) logic and the colors began changing a little bit.

Look! Look! I see a little bit of color change going on!

I'll end here but will do a post later this week showing the rest of my "experiments".

Texture on Fabric

There are a lot of different ways to obtain texture on fabric. I've been experimenting (again) with different mediums.

Below are several photos of the results.

I started out with a medium weight canvas fabric. Cheap canvas. No need to experiment with the expensive stuff, huh?

I applied a thin to medium coat (apx.1/16" to 1/8") of molding paste and used different "tools" (i.e. fingers, baby wipes, crunched up paper) to obtain the texture on the wet paste.

Let this dry.

I used various Golden fluid acrylic paints to add washes of color.

Click on the pictures to see the detail.

It's just awesome to see how much texture you can get and how the paint really catches on the hills and valleys of the molding paste. I used "light" molding paste so I could sew through it later.

And yes, your machine can handle it ...  as long as it not TOO thick... and it would probably sew through a lot more than what you think anyway. (My hubby  just has to clean the machine a little more frequently)

You can see the frayed edges of the canvas material in this photo.

Here's a close-up of one section of the piece. I just love the colors!

This next photo is of a piece of paper that I used.  I actually started out covering paper and switched to fabric. The results will be just about the same with either one. I use paper and fabric interchangeably in my work anyway.

This is the same narrow piece of fabric from above.

My favorite area is in the center of it . The texture is just amazing,

as well as the flexibility of the entire piece of fabric!

I hope this will encourage you to experiment with different ways to approach your art making.

You just have to be willing to ask yourself this question

"Gee, I wonder what would happen if I did this?"