My local group met recently and we tried a new painting technique for fabric. It’s very simple and creates an organic look to the fabric. I didn’t manage to take any photos during the process. We watered down instant coffee and acrylic paint, really watered down. A tiny bit of paint and lots of water. Then the fabric is scrunched up and dipped into the watered down paint. After the fabric is completely soaked with paint, scrunch the fabric up again and darker paint can be added in dabs to the outside edges and over the ball of scrunched up fabric if desired. Then let the fabric dry and iron it afterwards.
Here’s all the fabric I painted scrunched and drying in the sun. It took more than two days to dry. I used fabric that had already been dyed, many of which were really bright orange and I was finding difficult to use in projects. So a bit more neutralizing was needed.
This is a piece of cotton that was already dyed gray and then paint added on top.
Here’s another piece of cotton that was orange. I added diluted blue paint and then some darker paint after it was scrunched.
I think this piece was white to start and the paint made the pattern and color.
This was medical gauze that Paula gave us. I think it will work for nuno felting, so you will probably see it again in the future.
These two were previously dyed cheesecloth (again orange) and then diluted paint added over the top.
I’m fairly certain this is silk gauze with dye and paint added. Again, another candidate for nuno felting.
The fossil print on this piece of fabric was done years ago. I designed the silk screen and printed a variety of fossils. Now this trilobite has a bit moodier background. More layers?
This piece of silk gauze started white and then had diluted paint and coffee added. I will be interested to see if the coffee holds its color with felting. I thought this might be an interesting start to a landscape.
We’re supposed to be using these fabrics for our fabric book (our year long project) but I’m not making much progress in that direction. I have three pages complete but I’m not really happy with the result. One of those projects where I’m in the middle, discouraged and can’t imagine that it’s going to end well. Hopefully, I will be inspired by these new fabric choices to use.
I have been continuing with my experiments with trying to create a “watercolor” effect in nuno felt. I decided to take a few of the pieces that were the least successful with the dye/paint application and add more. The first addition of “more” is with sheer fabrics.
This is the piece I decided to start with. It had lost a lot of its color and still looked like a landscape but I felt it could do with “more”.
I started with adding in some torn tulle trees on the right hand side.
Then I took some sheer green fabric and added it on the left to give a feel of hills in the background. Some of these steps might be hard to see as the fabric is very sheer but it’s the layering that achieves the final effect.
I then cut off the left edge of the green sheer and added it back into the “hill” area. This gives a bit of value change as you add further layers of sheer.
After looking at the tulle trees as compared to the green sheer on the left, I decided to change the trees. Since the background was mainly yellow, I thought the addition of purple/maroon trees would give a neutralized tree color but still feel there was additional color added. That seemed better so I added in the shadows too. I added a bit of the purple/maroon on the left for a bit of foreground in front of the green hills.
Next up was to try and change the “straight line” over the trees on the right. It felt too abrupt a change in color. So I added a couple of layers of light blue sheer over the trees and then a full piece of blue sheer over the entire piece.
The next step was looking over the piece to see anything else that stood out. I noticed that the green sheer I had on the left needed a little work. It felt too straight along the bottom and there was a weird kind of ‘flag’ in the middle of the hills. So I changed those and then began stitching. It’s hard to see but there is light yellow stitching in the foreground. That wasn’t meant to add a hard line, just to hold the blue fabric down and keep the smaller sheer pieces underneath in place. I did add a broken darker brown horizon line which you can see I have started on the left.
I continued adding stitch to the horizon line as well as the sky. Again, in the sky, I didn’t want a hard line so I used a very light gray thread, not pure white that might “stick” out too much.
The final step was to make very small stitches all around the edges of the piece to hold everything in place. I am happy with the result, a bit more color but still an abstract, dreamy effect.
I recently wrote about using watercolors to create abstract landscapes. My purpose was to try the technique on paper and then try to translate it to silk and nuno felt. I experimented with a variety of small samples, the largest being 10″ x 13″.
My first attempt, I soaked 3mm silk in soda ash solution and placed it on white paper. I then mixed up a paste of fiber reactive dye with a bit of water and used a palette knife to apply the dye paste to the wet silk. I used dye colors pewter and daffodil. I added water with a spray bottle and with a paint brush. The photo above on the left shows the silk drying on the paper backing. The photo on the right shows the paper underneath after drying.
The picture on the left shows the silk after rinsing and the silk after nuno felting with fine white merino. It still is a landscape but I lost so much of the lovely green color. I love the paper that was underneath but the end result is a bit disappointing. I will be still using all these samples and adding further dye, paint or stitch so don’t worry, they will be improved. And I will see what other surface design techniques will give the end result I want. But I forged on trying to get a better result from the beginning.
The next step was to try painting the dye with the silk laid out on plastic. I covered my print board with plastic and laid wet silk soaked in soda ash on top. I used the same application with a palette knife and adding water as needed to spread the dye. The photo on the left is after applying the dry. The center photo is after the dye has dryed in the silk and the right photo is after nuno felting. This was a bit better and I can see the landscape in this result. I kept track of my results by taking photos, pasting them in my sketchbook and writing out the process for each piece. I also kept a running list of “what ifs” and further ideas to try.
Experiment number three was to nuno felt the silk first. The left photo shows the white nuno felt (a bad photo), the middle is after applying the dye and the left is after rinsing. The dye does not move very easily on the felted silk compared to plain silk. Therefore, the dye doesn’t spread as much. This is still using fiber reactive dye, so I asked myself “What about acid dye since now I have added wool to the equation?”
I think you can tell from looking at the results from left to right, there is some improvement in keeping the color in the end result.
I got a little off track here as I next decided to try felting some paper and see how that worked. I used small pieces of Kitakata handmade paper that I already had on hand. The photo on the left shows the felted paper. I got in a hurry and the paper didn’t felt in as well as I would have liked. But I decided since these are mainly samples, it didn’t matter. Forge ahead! I soaked the nuno felted paper in soda ash and then added fiber reactive dye for the landscape. I continued to use the palette knife method of dye application. The photo on the right shows the piece after rinsing and drying. My next thought was “What if I used the nuno felted paper but painted it with watercolor and didn’t rinse it out?”
I nuno felted more paper on to the merino and added the watercolor paint with the palette knife. I forgot to get a photo with the paint still wet. The photo on the right shows the dried result. The interesting thing with this one was that the water I applied above the horizon line (and none below) caused the water to seep into the dry paper moving most of the paint below the horizon line. Interesting end result though. Work upside down the next time?
In the middle of these experiments, I helped a friend with how to dye cotton fabric. She had not dyed before so we had a fun afternoon playing with dye. I had my pieces of silk ready for nuno felting and I thought I would dye some a very light blue for sky colors.
This next piece has the blue silk, nuno felted first and then soaked in a vinegar solution to get ready for acid dyes. I applied the dyes as usual, forgot to take a photo and then steamed the piece to set the acid dye. The dye shifted all over the place and the end result looked nothing like the original application of dye. It still looks like a landscape, kept the color better but I didn’t want this much shifting of the dye.
So I tried a second one with blue sky silk and acid dyes. It’s not a good photo because of the glare but you get the idea of what it looked like after painting with dye. I picked it up, did not think to put it on a tray or flat surface and the dye came pouring out and the landscape was lost. I just rinsed the piece and you see on the right, that a slight amount of dye took without steaming. That gave a nice misty background that I decided would work for depth.
I then added watercolor of Payne’s Gray and Quinacridone Gold Deep in the usual manner. I let the watercolors dry and didn’t rinse as this will be a wall hanging and will not be washed. This is getting a little closer to the outcome I want.
Next up was to treat the silk as if it was a silk painting. I stretched the silk over a wooden frame and used tacks to attach it to the frame. I then applied the dye with a palette knife and added water. The edges were a bit tricky as I didn’t have any gutta resist to keep the dye from spreading but again, it’s just a sample. Then I decided I could dry/heat the silk without removing it from the frame with my heat gun. Oops, I burned a hole in it. Perhaps next time, I will let it dry and then iron it. Or I could use silk paints and the proper resists. The right photo is the piece after nuno felting. Still looks like a landscape and I don’t mind the edges.
I still have quite a few ideas to tweak the process and I want to try adding more on top of the results I have shown here. I am having fun experimenting and perhaps one of these days, I will decide to make a bigger piece once I have an end result that works for me.
I have been seeing some abstract watercolor landscape paintings on Instagram and thought I would like to try them. I don’t have a link for you as I seem to have kept scrolling without following or saving the video. If you look up painting watercolor landscapes with a palette knife on either YouTube or Instagram, you should be able to see some videos.
I already had some pieces of watercolor paper cut into small pieces, the largest being 4″ x 6″. These already had a light painting of blue to purple high flow acrylics on them but I decided that would work as the sky for the landscape. Some of the videos suggest that you use 3-4 colors of watercolor paint but I decided to keep it simple and only use two colors at a time.
I started with dry paper and the first two colors were Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. I used a small blob of Payne’s Gray straight from the tube onto the edge of a palette knife. I scraped the palette knife across the dry paper for the horizon line. Remember the rule of thirds and avoid putting the horizon right in the center of the paper. I always think of it as having more sky or less sky in the picture. The paint can be kind of messy as you apply it and doesn’t need to be a solid line. I then applied the Burnt Sienna in the same manner but limited it to 3-5 small areas.
Then I applied water on a large flat brush above the horizon line. If I got much paint on the brush, I rinsed it between strokes. The paint from the horizon line moves up into the water and spreads by itself. Limit your brush strokes so you don’t overwork it. I pulled the paint up with vertical strokes above the horizon and used quite a lot of water. On some of the paintings, I sprayed water on too. I also took some of the leftover paint on the palette knife (very minimal paint) to make a few tree trunks above the horizon line.
Below the horizon line, I used less water on the brush and barely touched the paint moving it more horizontally. Some of the paintings, I moved the paint a bit by dabbing the end of the brush into paint (already on the painting) and applying it into the wet areas.
The first four paintings were all done with Payne’s Gray and Burnt Sienna. Try to vary the height of the trees and allow some of the trunks to lean one way or the other. The other thing that I tend to do is space my trees evenly across the landscape. That tends to look very artificial so make your spacing uneven. You can see that I experimented with the amount of paint used and the amount of working back into the wet areas.
Next up was to try two new colors. I chose colors from opposite sides of the color wheel so that there was contrast and when they mixed, it would give a neutralized (brown, gray) color. The painting on the right had a few black trunks added after the painting was dry with a black felt tip pen. I used Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Gold Deep in these two paintings. I love how the watercolor painting spreads on the wet paper and how you can add a bit more paint over the “distant” trees to give atmosperhic perspective.
Another change of colors to Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and Quinacridone Gold Deep. This produced a much more pine forest type of feel.
These were really quick and easy to paint and I love the results. If I tried to paint trees in detail, I would never get this result. Now that I have tried these on paper, I have been sampling ways to get this result on silk and nuno felt. I am trying different methods and have a bunch of samples to show you in my next post.
Our local group meeting in November was all about painting fabric. We are still working on background fabrics that will be included in our fabric books. We used a variety of “fabric” paints that are heat set.
Louise had cut up a bunch of different types of fabric to paint on and had a wide arrary of paints.
The idea was to spray water on to the fabric, then add paint and then you could if you wanted, add another piece of fabric on top to pick up extra paint. The photos above show a piece of sheer fabric that was painted, then a piece of cotton velveteen was added on top. The final photo on the right shows the velveteen after all the paint colors were added. This is Sally’s fabric.
Paula was working in shades of brown. These fabrics are all still wet, so it will be interesting to see what they look like dry.
I was working in fall colors. When you see the black printing, those are fabrics that we screen printed years ago that Louise still had in her stash.
These are a few of Louise’s painted pieces.
And one more photo of one of Sally’s painted fabrics. We left the fabric at Louise’s house to dry and then everything will need to be ironed. Next month, we have plans to do some fabric weaving for a book page.
In July, our water heater decided to start pouring water all over the floor. But it was a bit sneaky because instead of on top of the floor, the water went between the wood laminate and the sub-floor. We didn’t notice it right away until the edges of the wood laminate started deforming. Oh no… Because of the way our house is made and the inability to replace 20+ year old wood laminate, we have to replace the entire floor. Our house is only on one level and everything needed to be removed from the house. When the house was built, the paint used was not very good and the trim and doors were all painted the same color as the walls, a tan color. This post has little to no art/fiber in it, so feel free to quit reading if you don’t want to hear the rest of the floor removal/replacement saga.
Here’s a picture of part of my studio room before this happened. I had just cleaned it out to accomodate the new work table given to me by my friend Deb.
Here’s a couple more photos showing how much stuff I have in this room. And it all had to be removed. I decided that since everything had to be moved out and this room had not been repainted since the house was built, I would paint it with bright white to hopefully make it feel brighter.
Here’s the room after the first coat of white was completed. If you look at the closet door on the right side of the photo, you can see the original color of paint. I was just planning on painting the studio but ended up with a much bigger painting project than planned.
We had a removal company (that is being paid by the insurance company) come and remove everything from the house. Here you can see some of my studio furniture being take away.
Most of the furniture is gone and you can see on the left side where the floor was damaged. For a little fiber relief, my umbrella felt tree is on top of the wall unit holding the television.
Edgar had a hard time with all of this. People were stealing his furniture and everything is out of place. We’re now staying in our camper in the driveway with winter coming on fast.
Here’s the living room with all the base trim removed and the old laminate torn up. The sub-floor has been sanded and hopefully, by the time this post goes live, the new flooring will be in.
Here’s my painting station. I am repainting all the inside doors (11) in the house. They were painted the tan color and need two coats of the semi-gloss white paint. So it is taking me a while. I am also painting any base board that wasn’t white (all the closets) and also several doorway moldings that hadn’t been painted. Another bit of fiber is on the wall (right side of photo) that is usually over my bed. These are two needle pointed pieces, one that was stitched by my dad and the other (right) by my mom.
I have another three days at least of painting doors but the good news is how nice the house will look after this is all finished. This definitely wasn’t in the plan for this year but I’m finally getting these doors painted correctly after 23 years! Hopefully, next post, I will be back to fiber/art production.
Back in April 2002, before I became infected by felt and was still interested in woven tapestry, I plucked up courage and attended a Tapestry Weaving Course run by professional tapestry weaver Bobbie Cox. If you live in or near Rochester in Kent you may have seen some of her work as there are four of her tapestries adorning the Lady Chapel in Rochester Cathedral. My report of the workshop was published in the March 2003 edition of The Journal for Weavers Spinners & Dyers. I have reproduced it here. I’m afraid that there weren’t any photographs for me to show you as I didn’t own a camera at that time. I have tried to produce the sketches that I made and you will see why I say that I can’t draw, except with a felting needle!
Lady Chapel, Rochester Cathedral – Bobbie Cox Tapestries
“Peter Tavy, Two Coats Colder than Tavistock”
“And I wish I had known before I went! Still this only related to the weather and was in contrast to the warmth of the welcome from the inhabitants of Peter Tavy when I joined 16 others on an ‘overflow’ course on Design & Tapestry Weaving given by Bobbie Cox at Peter Tavy Village Hall (formerly the school) in the second week in April 2002 (the original course had had such a long waiting list that Bobbie had arranged an additional one).
“Our first task was to explore the village taking in textures, colours and atmosphere, making notes, taking wax rubbings and collecting samples.
“On returning to the hall we discussed what we had found and then Bobbie told us that our theme for the course would be ‘windows’. She showed us slides of photographs she had taken from the inside looking out, outside looking in, of misted window glass, and raindrops, of reflections and shadows. She reminded us that windows are the eyes of a building and can be looking at us whilst we are looking at them. (I’ll never regard a window in the same way again!) Then she sent us out around the village again to ‘collect’ windows. The villagers were (with one unpleasant exception) very tolerant of the students gazing at their properties in a very odd way, even the overwintering inhabitants of the sole remaining farm’s cowshed.
Wax rubbings of various surfaces
A rough (very) of a church window showing diamond panes.
Another rough sketch – a slit window in the cow barn from the outside
A sketch showing a slit window of the cow barn – from the inside
“The students were of mixed ability, from complete beginners (three of us – one of whom was our ‘token man’ Peter) to the quite advanced. Bobbie showed us three ways of warping our frames, how to decide on the set of the warp and how to spread the warps appropriately. She gave us advice and encouragement and showed us some of her many sample pieces to illustrate her points and her tips.
“After a picnic lunch beside the River Tavy, it was back to work – perfecting our designs with paint and pencil. (I stayed up till 11.30 getting mine done.)
My idea of how to depict a view through a diamond paned window – not used in the end as too complicated
My final painted design for the window tapestry
“Next day Bobbie set up an Indigo vat – in the back of her car! (Well it was very cold out and much warmer inside the car which was standing in the sun, indigo vats need to be kept warm.)
“We all took turns to dip various yarns and fibres, re-dipping and over dyeing some coloured yarns for various periods during that day and also leaving some in the vat over-night. In between times we started the actual weaving of our tapestries, all the time receiving tips and advice from Bobbie.
“She advised us to watch out for shrinkage or ‘waisting’ – the tapestry pulling in at the sides as the weaving progresses. It is unlikely that this will be the result of poor selvedges, but more likely to be because the use of several different yarns in one pic, or ending one or more kelim slits in a single pic. Bobbie’s suggestion was that we should insert a number of ‘guy ropes’ by sewing one end of a spare piece of warp thread near the edge of the tapestry (but not too close to it) and tying the ends to the sides of the frame. If this is done on both sides of the tapestry, the tension will help to prevent the waisting. (I wondered what the purists would think of this, but if it’s good enough for Bobbie Cox it’s good enough for me.)
“Day 3; and after removing the yarns which had rested in the dye vat over-night, some of us tried some more in what was thought just to be the exhaust of the indigo. In fact there was still quite a bit of life there and we dipped several skeins each.
“As the sun was still shining, we decided that we would lay out on the playground the yarns which had been dried over-night so that Bobbie and those students with cameras could photograph them. It was then that we received some exuberant visitors. They were some of the inhabitants of the cowshed on their way through the village to alternative accommodation. They were moving at high speed in all directions, frantically followed by the farmer. Bobbie saw off the ones which had decided to see what the activity was at the Village Hall. I understand that they were eventually rounded up and led of to their new abode, having left liberal donations for the rose garden in the streets.
“Before lunch, delivered to the Village Hall by Jill, the Peter Tavy Sandwich Lady, some of the students accompanied Bobbie on a walk up to Dartmoor. Some of us, not having sufficient warm clothing, decided to stay and work on.
“During the day Bobbie showed us some more slides of windows and also some of her own work. However the highlight of the day was a visit to Bobbie’s own studio. She was not working on anything at the moment, being very much involved in the administration of her touring exhibition ‘Woven Water’. She did have two of the larger pieces from this Exhibition, ‘Spring’ and ‘Autumn’, which she hung along with some other pieces for us to see, including a recently completed commission – a large tapestry inspired by the beach at Blakeney Point in Norfolk entitled ‘Tidelines, a Woven Memory of Blakeney’. Also on display were picture boards showing the inspiration and development of that design and some of the Woven Water tapestries as well as some smaller samples and bundles of wefts tied and dyed. Bobbie explained the mechanics of her large high warp loom and how she works on it.
“The next day – our last – was Sunday. Now we were all working hard trying to get as much weaving done as possible before our visitors arrived. At Bobbie’s suggestion we had all asked our bed and breakfast hosts to morning coffee and to see what we had been doing during our stay. This is apparently a feature of Bobbie’s courses and many villagers visit regularly. The noise level rose dramatically as the visitors wandered around and chatted.
“Bobbie did manage to fit in a few more tips for us though:
“1 Don’t be in too much of a hurry to cut the work off the loom, live with it for a while in case you subsequently decide that you want to add to it or make some changes. It won’t be possible after it’s off the loom.
“2 Ends of yarns are usually left hanging at the back of the work, unless it is to be viewed from both sides. Don’t cut them too close to the weaving or they will start to work through to the right side.
“3 Darn in yarn ends which are near the selvedge or kelim slits.
“4 When you darn in, slide the needle up or down the warp thread, not across the warps – it might show.
“5 Consider the mechanics you will use to hang the finished tapestry (although this should have been thought out at the design stage). You may need to weave further pics in the heading, for instance if you will be incorporating a metal (preferably stainless) rod or a wooden slat.
“6 Weighting the bottom of the weaving will help it to hang better.
“7 Steam press the work on the reverse side – using a cloth and pressing lightly.
“At three o’clock we started to pack up and then display our work and our design drawings so that they could all be looked at and photographed. It was amazing what diverse designs had been achieved. We had all learned something, particularly we three beginners. Bobbie had encouraged us to try our own ideas and allowed us to make our own mistakes, lessons being better learned by trial and error than by example.
“By the time that we finished at about four, we were all very tired by very happy. One usually finds on a course like this that there is one person who spoils things for the others, but it had been noted that our group was particularly lucky in that we were not “blessed” with the student who wanted to grab all the tutor’s time, or the one who wanted to be the centre of everyone’s attention (boring or noisy or both), or the hypochondriac. We all had a great time – thank you Bobbie.
“PS If you attend another of Bobbie’s courses in Peter Tavy, better diet before you go – the food in the local pubs is marvellous – so’s the beer!”
Window Tapestry – still on the loom I’m afraid and I don’t think it ever progressed any further.
A couple of weeks later I attended another tapestry workshop run by another professional but I’ll save my report of that one for another day.
Our art group had another meeting and this time we painted miniature landscapes. These were so fun. They are quite small, only 1.5″ x 2.75″ in the painted part and the paper is cut to an inch bigger than that vertically and horizontally. These were painted with a limited palette of mainly greens, little bit of blue, browns, white and if you wanted, an accent color. Because they are so small, they don’t take much time and you can work on multiple paintings at one time.
Here are Louise and Paula at the start. I didn’t get a lot of process photos because I got too busy and forgot.
Here are my first two pieces of watercolor paper taped down to a plastic board. The tape is right up to the edge of the paper so that a border of white is left after removing the tape. We used acrylic paints, small brushes and palette knives to paint with.
Paula was painting three at a time and has the most experience in painting these. It’s just a few swipes of green for the foreground and then painting in the sky with scrumbled blue and off white (or you can use other colors as you like). You are supposed to deliberately be “vague” with your mark making to give a resemblance to trees and other landscape such as bushes or mountains. Because the piece is so small, it is difficult to get too precise anyways.
Here are Louise’s three. She used a bit larger piece of paper on two of them. It’s amazing to pull off the tape and the painting looks better.
Here are Sally’s landscapes. The one in the middle is framed by a white matte.
Here’s six that Paula painted. She is very good at the abstract methods of painting these.
Here is one of mine. I put the US penny in to let you see the scale, very small!
Here are the other three that I painted. I enjoyed making these. Because they are small, I didn’t feel like I was “wasting” a canvas or watercolor paper like I sometimes do when creating/painting at a larger scale. This small, thumbnail size might be fun with wool too.
