When I started researching Monet for the challenge, I had already decided I didn’t really want to do anything with flowers. I had never seen his Parliament paintings but he did quite a few different ones in a variety of lighting. I thought looking at the same scene in different lighting and weather was interesting so I decided to use that as inspiration. I also wanted to try adding the color at the end with deconstructive screen printing.
This is the original Monet that I used for inspiration.
I made a piece of prefelt out of two shades of blue. This is Merino that I had dyed quite a while ago with indigo.
I laid out a background of orange woolt. The background has four layers except under the prefelt where there are only two layers. I also decided that I wanted to use several different type of fiber for embellishments that would dye differently with acid dye. I got this idea from Teri’s blog a few weeks ago.
Here is the piece after felting. The bottom portion has banana fiber and the top has silk noil. I was planning on covering the yellow moon area before screen printing but I completely forgot about it.
Here is my screen that has two colors of dye drying on it. I used various “stuff” under the screen when applying the dye to get texture. Then came the hard part. I had no idea how this was going to turn out once I screened it on the felt. I decided to wet the felt with vinegar water and then screen to get a more diffuse look.
Here it is right after screening. Not too exciting right? But don’t give up hope 🙂
I steamed the piece for 30 minutes and then rinsed it out. Here you can see the banana fibers didn’t take the dye since they are plant-based. The turquoise blue is a bit of silk noil.
And here’s a view of the silk noil a little closer on the top portion.
And the final result of the piece. I really like how it turned out. The photo doesn’t do justice to the subtle color changes made by the various colors of dye applied through the silk screen. If I was trying this method again, I would try it on dry felt. The dye definitely spread and I would have liked to see more variations from the deconstructive screens. But all in all I am pleased. I plan on putting this one on a painted canvas. Now to decide what color that should be.
Have you tried your hand at the Monet challenge? We would love to see what you created!