Color Studies

Color studies for a tomato.

Creating color studies has been long, boring, and tedious... then again mixing paint can be exciting.

It can also be terrifying when you realized you just wasted a large amount of expensive watercolor paint to end up with a color you don't want.  So make sure to put a swatch in your color studies swatch book, and note which colors, proportions, brands, etc.,

I remembered that I had fresh on the vine tomatoes in my kitchen...

In the end color mixing and creating all of those swatches has become well worth the effort.  The last time I did any serious color studies, that involved mixing my own paints, etc., was a good twenty plus years ago.

If you've never mixed colors before I highly recommend doing so, there are plenty of color mixing books available in the art book market to help get you started.

No. 0 or My Sample Board

I found this 5x7x2 inch raised panel frame whilest looking for something else and decided it would make for an excellent test subject, hence the reason I labeled it No. 0!

Here it is with a iridescent shiva paintstik layer and then a layer of thinned gold metallic paint that I wiped off, after it was half dried, with a diaper wipe.  Now to add more glazes, birds, and frilly stuff, via texture tools.

The crow is from my Three Crows Stencil from StencilGirl Products. Dots were created using sequin waste ribbon, random frilly stencil.

More Stitching

Adding more vine tendrils and bits.
Hand dyed french cotton threads, natural dyed flax, natural dyed painted silk chiffon, on white silk dupioni fabric. Machine and hand stitched.

Working with hand dyed french cotton thread, I'm using a single strand to create a background layer of delicate tendrils.

Working with a couple of colors of hand dyed french cotton thread.  Next I will add more vine bits (like the upper left hand corner) using the same thread only double stranded.

I'm using the ivy bits on my house as my inspiration.

I love how they crisscross defying the laws of design!

WIP - Birds in Tree

First design made with the Birds in Tree stencil design.  The stencil to the right is Birds in Tree Inverse - works best as a mask or with a large brayer full of paint!  More photos later...

Stencil Heaven!

 

 

Tsukineko ink on watercolor paper using my two stencil designs.

Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil -  works beautifully as a mask when laying down color!

"Bird in Trees Inverse" Stencil sample.  I'm in love with both of my stencil samples, if you don't hear from me well you know the drill send whoppers and cheesecake cause it means I'm holed up in my studio!

Sample of Wonder

This sample piece is working on becoming something special, after dinner I will retire to the wet studio to surface the pink piece which may or may not be of the same colors as the one in the lower left hand corner.

Dyed and painted cheesecloth that coordinates beautifully with my sample piece.

A basket filled with coordinating threads, trims, constructed yarns, etc.

Organizing Fabric Stash Leads to Found Samples!

Believe it or not the fabric in that suitcase really is organized!  While I was searching for piece of unfinished silk fabric I found my long lost stitched sample I had been looking for late last fall. 

Due to the sample of the rights disappearance, deep into a pile of folded fabrics, I made another sample to pratice some machine stitching on.  Both sample pieces consist of cochineal dyed cotton fabrics and are machine stitched.  The left sample, however, has been surfaced further using fabric paints, oil bar, and ink.  I'm thinking the sample on the right could use a good dose of color as well.

Practice No. 2

Well since I lost my orginal practice piece I whipped up another one this evening. 
Cochineal dyed cotton fabric, machine stitched, wool quilt batting, aurifil threads.

I couched down more sisal to pratice some stitches with, this "x" shape I bobbin stitched using aurifil wool thread.  Above view is the back side of the sample that was facing upwards when stitching. 

Top side after bobbin stitching, the aurifil wool thread doesn't like to feed through the top on my 6500S so I bobbin stitch with it instead.

I've couched down more sisal since this shot was taken, now I will experiment with hand stitching over the sisal and then machine stitching over the hand stitching to see which effect I prefer.  This all in anticipation of finishing Bjorkboda.

Samples

Cynthia Wenslow asked on her blog if anyone else made samples, and my anwser is YES!  Consider it a hold over from art school where we were expected to make sketches and color swatches of EVERYTHING before we even made something.  But to anwser Cynthia's question... with the cost of supplies exploding I'm making more samples than I ever have in the past.  Above is a color sample of pink on black to see if it was possible, the anwser is YES with opaque pink paint on top of black fabric.

Image Transfer Workshop Prep

WIP - Samples of journal covers students will be making in the Image Transfer Workshop that I'm teaching on the 27th.  I used Tsukineko All Purpose inks to paint the canvas duck with and wrote on the canvas using the Zig Opaque Writers (Millenium).

Sewing Rusted Fabrics Tutorial

Sewing rusted fabrics is no different that stitching any other fabric except, and that's a big EXCEPT, when the fabrics are heavily rusted!  Then there are all sorts of problems that arise. 

For moderately rusted fabrics as seen in the above photo, a heavy cotton thread and a sewing machine needle with a large eye, like a leather needle, work well. 

But what does one do when the fabric itself or the thread shreds during the stitching process??? 

This tutorial will help you stitch those fabrics and get the look you are wanting.  I highly recommend having some extra rusted samples on hand and taking good notes on which processes worked for each sample, BEFORE you start the large commission piece.  Doing so will guarantee fewer headaches in the future ;-)

Materials Needed:

Rusted fabrics

iron on interfacing of some sort I use Mistyfuse TM

Sewer's Aid TM (Dritz) - liquid

Fray Check TM (Dritz) - liquid

Needles with large eye such as a leather needle

Heavy cotton or poly blend threads, rayon and silk thread will only shred to pieces in this process.

Nymo or Fireline for heavily rusted areas that you don't/didn't want to discharge.