Shibori with Paint and Photoshop

Last week I was looking again at my Citrsolv experiments, which resulted in some pretty cool textural prints,  but needed more of a focal point to create interest.

 

Many artists use these Citrasolv papers as background for collages. If you don't know about this process a good video to find about about it is one by Cathy Taylor of Cheap Joes's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FskgfDxI__M  The Citrsolv website is also a great place to check out what artists are doing with this technique,  http://citrasolv.com/  Once there, go to Artist Support.  Basically, you use a natural, citrus based cleaning product called Citrasolv, which you can buy online or at health food stores.  You apply it to pages in a National Geographic magazine, shut the magazine, let it sit for 2 to 24 hours, then open it up to see the interesting results obtained through the ink being dissolved by the cleaner. 

This last week I layered a photo of a shibori piece over a couple of my Citrasolv pieces, increasing the transparency of the top piece.  This is what resulted.

Here is a photo of the  Shibori piece. I did this with paint, rather than dye, something else I've been wanting to try.  I rather like it, and it was much easier than using dye.  The fabric is not quite as soft however.

Above are photos of the layered images.

Van Gogh to Kandinsky Show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

My husband and I got in a quick trip to to L.A. last week before school starts up.  We went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the "Van Gogh to Kandinsky Show" which was marvelous.  It's one of my favorite periods of art.  There are wonderful examples of Post Impressionism,  Fauvism, Cubism, woodcuts, etc.   Here are some of my favorites from the show.

Ernst Kirchner, Dance Hall Bellevue 1909

Heinrich Campendonk, Harlequin and Columbine, 1913

Robert Delaunay, Saint-Severin, 1909

Franz Marc, Stables, 1913

Van Gogh, Wheat Field with Reaper, 1889

If you get a chance, check it out.  There's many more wonderful pieces, too many to show here. And of course seeing them here is nothing like seeing the real painting.

Flour Paste Resist

I've been wanting to try this resist method for years, but for whatever reason, didn't get around to it until last week. The process is explained well in Jane Dunnewold's Art Cloth book and Sue Beevers'  Off-the-Shelf Fabric Painting book. There have also been numerous articles about it in Quilting Arts Magazine over the past few years.  Basically I made a paste of half water, half flour, whisking it smooth.  I stretched and pinned my fabric to a padded board with T-pins.  The fabric I used had been previous ice-dyed, but needed more texture and pattern.  I used a squeegee and applied a thin layer of the paste to the fabric. I used a notched trowel, like those used for tile setting, and made some patterns into the paste with that.  I also used a bamboo skewer to do some doodling and writing.  You need to make sure you are scratching all the way through to the fabric, so there will be an opening through which to brush in the paint. Then I set it outside to dry.

Once it dried, I crushed it to get crackles through the paste.  I even crunched it up and put it in the freezer for a few hours and then did more crushing of it.  It was hard to see what and how many openings I had created .  I stretched it out again on the padded surface and used a synthetic, flat,  acrylic paintbrush to push in black Setacolor paint.  I painted over the whole piece really pressing that paint into the surface in many directions.  Then I set it outside to dry.

I let it sit for three days so the paint would really adhere to the fabric.  Then I let it soak in a bucket of water to loosen the paste.  I rinsed out all the paste, let it dry, and ironed it to further set the paint.  Then I washed it twice.

Closeup 1

Closeup 2

Closeup 3

This piece was sun-printed first.  I used a stencil in applying the paste and the trowel.

Arashi Fabric using Three Poles

I've been taking a great online class, taught by Jane Dunnewold, called The Art of Cloth Dyeing,   through Craftsy http://www.craftsy.com/  .  I have both of her books and have thoroughly enjoyed them and refer to them often.  Wasn't even sure if I needed to take the class, but got it at half price for $25.00, which is far cheaper then going to one of the four day classes she teaches, especially when you add in lodging and travel expenses. Not saying I wouldn't love to go to one of those, but just don't have the dough. Having been a dyer for some time and teaching dyeing as well, most of the material is review for me, but have learned some new things here and there. I enjoy her teaching style and demeanor as well.

However, dyeing using more than one pvc pole was something completely new to me. When you want to dye a larger piece of fabric, wrapping it around one pvc pole, even a wide diameter one, there is still fabric that won't have contact with the dye.  This is a way to get the dye to reach all of the fabric. I didn't do it quite like Jane teaches in the class.  She immerses the poles into liquid dye with soda ash.  I like to presoak the fabric and squirting the dyes, so I can use multiple colors.

This fabric was ice-dyed first and had a lot of white, uninteresting areas.  It's about a yard. I pre-soaked the fabric in soda ash and let it line dry. Next,  I stitched three lines, using the largest stitch on my machine,  to create sleeves so I could insert three PVC poles, one into each.

Here are the poles through the fabric

This picture shows the fabric compressed on the poles.

I put them into a plastic lined garbage can lid and squirted diluted dye.  Then it was allowed to batch for 24 hours to give the dye time to attach to the fabric.

Here is the finished fabric.  It has some wonderful layers of textures, pattern, and colors as you can see in the closeup photos below.