Chapter 5 - Fabric Selection & Decoration

I have been sorting fabrics from my stash and have bought some when I've been out and about. I mainly bought lightweight and sheer fabrics. My stash fabrics are mainly what have been leftover from projects and given to me. I will probably dye some scrim and a couple of other neutral fabrics as I move through the module, I want to see how some designs evolve before dyeing lots of fabric.

 

 

 

It was a good afternoon for decorating some fabric today, as the sun was shining into my workroom and I knew the fabrics would dry nicely. I selected several fabrics to begin with. I was much more confident than when I started printing the paper - and far more organised.  I chose two colours as suggested in the module to start; Metallic Silver Acrylic Paint and Island Blue So Soft Fabric Paint. I had some fabric paint so thought I would use it for this.

 

 



 

 

I used my rubber stamp that I made for printing paper. I printed in the same way as I did the coloured paper and tried some random and some more ordered patterns. The silver looks more 'silver' in reality, it looks more white in the photographs.

 

As I had the fabric paint I then added Tangerine into the mix and also tried some sponging, as I liked this effect with the paper printing. I ended up with a nice range of effects on different types of fabric. I seem to find I like my printing & colouring efforts better once I have walked away for a while, and then come back. I could begin to see how the printed fabrics could be used in designs as I was working this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a nice group of fabrics to move onto Chapter 6 with now and am happy I can quickly print more as and when I need to.  I can definitely see the benefits of colouring and printing to obtain something that is unique to you.

Chapter 2 - Making Coloured Papers

This is something I have never done before, I usually just buy paper I want. I was a bit unsure of which dyes to use and decided to try some cold water dyes and some alcohol inks.

 

 

Clearly by the bright pink and yellow don't believe what you read on the packet! I kept these for future use. I had great fun once I got going. I could only find a Christmas apron and did get a bit messy, and initially I wasn't too happy with the results. I found though that once the paper had dried I was pleased with my efforts. I used cartridge paper, textured paper and tissue paper. I love the coloured tissue paper and I think it was the best result. The cold water dyes worked well for big sheets but I'm going to invest in some Brusho for future use. The alcohol inks were not really suitable but I will explore with them in the future.

 

For the printing I chose part of one of my line drawings and cut the shape into a rubber. This worked surprisingly well and is a very cost effective way to make a stamp. I used 2 colours of acrylic paint. It was very easy to pick a line drawing to make the stamp, usually with no drawing I would dither for ages. I enjoyed the printing and found it 'lifted' some of the papers which I hadn't particularly liked. I'm gaining a much better understanding of colour.

 



 

2.1                                                               2.2

 

 

 

 

 



 

When cutting out star shapes from the coloured papers I tried to look at some geometric shapes and some natural shapes. I tried overlapping some shapes and mixing two shapes together. I found the coloured tissue paper gave a good contrast. Also, the coloured papers improved even more once I started cutting them and I began to think more about how I can colour more to help with Chapter 3.

 

 

2.3                                                               2.4