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Archive for the ‘thermofax’ Category

Printed Fabric Bee August 2015

Monday, August 3rd, 2015

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I am sorry for my absence, but I had a bit of a melt down last week, and I have had a lot of other stuff on my plate. More about that later.

On to this month’s printing for Jane Davila whose theme was insects.

I was inspired by this photo I found on the internet when I was surfing for ideas. A hot pink dragonfly? Loved it.

1318947739_Colourfull-dragonfly

I made a dragonfly thermofax screen and headed to the studio. I found the perfect hand-dyed green background fabric and an old leaf screen.

leafthermofax

I printed the dragonflies in hot pink.

dragonflyprint 1

Jane had asked for a touch of black so I added a black head and little dots on the bodies of my dragonflies.

Here is the collection so far:

insectbeecollection

For a chance to win this collection, leave a comment on Jane’s Blog or the Printed Fabric Bee Blog. She will select the winner on August 15th.

You can see what other members did on their blogs.

 

Blue Exhibit Opening and Current Work

Tuesday, July 7th, 2015

hhfdblues

This afternoon, Mr C and I braved the traffic on I-5 and drove up to Longview, WA to see the High Fiber Diet exhibit, What’s Blue to You, at the Lower Columbia College Art Center. The gallery was quite lovely and the show looked fantastic. I loved how they hung the blue and orange pieces together. You can see Blue Picasso Woman in this shot.

hfdblues4

We drove home on a different route, more back roads and it was lovely. We stopped at Burgerville for supper so that I could have Walla Walla onion rings.

I have been working on a neutrals piece for the next HFD show. It is composed of black and white photos from our trip to Glacier National Park. I printed them on Jacquard Extravorganza.

glacierphotos

I created pdfs of the photos and printed them poster style and fused them together to make them larger for the piece I am doing. I created a thermofax to print the title.

glacierprinting

I am doing some handstitching on each photo.

glacierstitching

glacierstiching2

Our hot, hot weather has finally abated and it was quite lovely today. What a relief.

Printed Fabric Bee – June Edition

Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

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Lynn Krawczyk was queen bee for the month of June and chose the theme, vintage. Oops. another challenge for me. I looked at a lot of vintage clip art and I really liked some vintage keys that I found. So, I made a thermofax screen.

Off to the studio, I found a piece of hand-dyed cotton that had a bit of purple and dark and light yellows and had an aged look to it. I searched through my thermofax screens and found this check pattern which I thought could look vintage. I used a purple paint and screened it on to the fabric.

purplecheckprint

I did some experimenting with printing the keys over the checks.  I used black for the keys. Lynn wanted any color but pink. In this photo, you can get a better idea of what the base fabric was.

keythermofax

I tried to make the printing look worn and not crisp so that it would look old. It was bloody hot in my studio, so I did not linger.

Here is the collage of the vintage collection. Click to see a larger version.

PFB June 2015

Leave a comment on the Printed Fabric Bee Blog (you might have to wait for Lynn’s post) and/or on Lynn’s Blog for a chance to receive the collection. Deadline is July 10.

Check out the member’s blogs for their contributions.

 

March Printed Fabric Bee – Mola

Thursday, April 2nd, 2015

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Julie, the March Queen Bee, chose Mola as her theme and black, red and any other bright colors. Molas are a Panamanian form of reverse applique using many layers of fabric. So, the first challenge was interpreting embroidery in a print. I selected a simple design, which I shared in a previous post. My plan was to do a black outline on red fabric with a yellow or orange center.

I made thermofax screens and the registration went fairly well, but before I could finish printing, the screen fabric started disintegrating and leaving blobs. I came home and regrouped and printed my design on freezer paper and cut the stencil.

This is the black outline stencil.

molastencil

And here is the stencil for the centers.

molastencil2

It is not bad, but it does not live up to my intention. I couldn’t find a yellow or orange paint that would cover the red and print stronger. The paper stencil began to fall apart and I ran out of red fabric, so I used the thermofax printed flower for the six inch giveaway piece.

mola6inch

Here is the mosaic showing the fabrics that were completed by the end of the month. Just couldn’t make it this month. Next month I am queen bee – whee! I get a month off and I get to have new fabric.

March2015PFBcollage

Go to Julie’s Blog or the Printed Fabric Bee Blog and leave comments for a chance to win the fabric collection.

 

January Printed Fabric Bee – Petroglyphs

Sunday, February 1st, 2015

 

PFB01.15petroglyphs

Lynda Heines chose petroglyphs and a turquoise and orange color scheme. I wanted to stay away from the more well-known cave drawings. I did a search of Oregon Petroglyphs and came up with some unusual drawings. These are the photos I used:

oregonpetroglypheyes

oregonpeptrglyph

oregonpet2

I wanted some different sizes and line width to create more interest and these seemed to fit the bill. I played with them in photoshop and came up with these:

oregoneyesbw

oregonpetro1bw

oregonpet2bw

I made 3 thermofax screens and headed to the studio. I love how my print surface is looking after several months of Printed Fabric Bee printing!

dropcloth

I digress!

I selected a beigish (made up word?) hand-dye for the background. I printed the eyes first using a light brown paint.

petroglypheyes

Next, I printed over that with the skeletal drawings, using turquoise.

oregonpetroglyphs

Then I added the bug like creature using a brick red paint. Here is the 6 inch piece I did for the giveaway.

PFB6inch01.2015

That was fun. And now, you can leave a comment on Lynda’s blog post and on the Printed Fabric Bee Blog for a chance to win a collection of the fabrics we all made.

PFB 01-15