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Cyanotone print on paper then felted with Fiona Duthie

Cyanotone print on paper then felted with Fiona Duthie

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08-06-2025 Cyanotone print on paper, then felted with Fiona Duthie – fine felt

On August 6th 2025,  The Great Canadian Felt Project, using Cyanotype paper dying with wet felting, arrived in Ottawa, Canada. This is an ongoing project moving across Canada, starting in the Maritimes (east coast) and moving west.  Small 3-hour mini-workshops are set up as Fiona and her husband travel across the country in a vintage VW bus. The workshops are being arranged on slightly short notice, due to allowing for travel time to reach the next area where felters will be gathering.  (If you are west or north west of us, you can see if she is heading your way. She has a web presence, you can try to connect with her as she is moving west. https://www.fionaduthie.com/great-canadian-felt-project-2025/)

Liane contacted her and ultimately arranged for two sessions in the OVWSG guild studio for Wednesday.

I have worked in a darkroom at university, so I am familiar with the concept of Cyanotype printing. It’s a little like playing with the enlarger in the dark room, but more blue.  I also preferred keeping my fibres dry when I felt. Since I can have fabulous fun with photo-documenting the event, I suggested I photograph and let someone else enjoy the fun of felting. (If they were short students, I could switch, and there would be fewer photos.)  There was a lot of enthusiasm for such a short notice, mid-week event, and we wound up with 2 groups of 11 students, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.  We only had a few days to get it all organised. The guild is also in the middle of moving rooms and looms, so tables had to be tracked down, a quick clean-up of the studio, and we were ready to have fun. You may recognise a few of the students from previous times you have joined me on shopping and at guild activities!

By the time I arrived early Wednesday morning, hoping to get a tiny bit of library work done before starting the photography fun, Liane had the room all set, ready for the workshop. She arrived shortly after I did, and was quickly followed by the teacher and her husband. The students arrived soon after that. Everyone was very excited, and almost everyone was early.

FIona and husband arives in OVWSG Studio with tables set up ready for teaching1.1) The room arranged, and the teacher and her TA setting up

Fiona Duthie and her husband both used to work in Ottawa, but are now located in BC. They had been on the East Coast, giving a felting workshop and visiting family.  She gave a brief overview of the order of operations, and the students quickly got into laying out their local plants and other objects they had brought.

on table covered in striped blue and white plastic cover Trays (cat litter trays) for rinsing, hand laundry scrubbers, Ballbrasa, Soap and water buckets2.1) Equipment: Trays (cat litter trays) for rinsing, hand laundry scrubbers, Ballbrasa, Soap and water buckets

close up of the hand laundry scrubbers2.2) close up of the hand laundry scrubbers. I think these were made in Germany. They remind me of a sewing clapper (it’s used on seams to flatten them)

the magic chemicals that make the wonderful blue colour the magic chemicals that make the wonderful blue colour2.3-2.4) the magic chemicals that make the wonderful blue colour (Chemicals: The primary chemicals used are ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. These are mixed to create a light-sensitive solution.) She had examples of two ways the chemicals were sold. Fiona pre-prepared the treated paper for the class.

The Cyanotype printing process uses a light-sensitive prepared paper,  with something that will block light, making a silhouette, in this case with local plants and found objects. The paper with objects sitting on it is then exposed to (UV) light, which will create an image on the paper.  The students were instructed to lay out their designs on the Plexiglas, then, when ready, the light-sensitive paper would be provided and the plants/stuff would be moved to it. But first, get the design they liked laid out.

Fiona gave an the overview of what they would be doing today shows 2 previous prints on felt 2.5) The overview of what they would be doing today

morning and afternoon students for the workshop3) the morning and afternoon workshop groups

Laying out the design on the plexi

A board, a piece of plexiglass and bubble wrap were at each spot. Students brought plants, lace, stones, weaving tools, and found objects.

4.1-4.6) laying out the design

Magic Paper time!

When the composition was the way the students wanted, Fiona handed out 2 sheets of the pre-prepared light-sensitive paper. (Note she has it hidden from the light between two boards.) One page the students will keep, and the other will go into Fiona’s Group project.

Since as soon as the paper is exposed to light, it will start to etch (like photo paper in an enlarger). So pre-laying out the design made it faster to get the composition moved from the plexi, which had been moved out of the way, so the magic paper on the wooden board could be quickly covered with their selected stuff. Fiona was very calm, and although it is time sensitive, no one seemed to be looking rushed.

The paper itself is also important. Fiona talked about what she had found most effective that allowed the wool fibre to bond with the paper (I promise I will get to the felting!). She mentioned my favourite place to get paper when I was taking Printmaking at the University of Toronto, the Japanese paper shop in Toronto (Queen Street West). A couple of the papers sounded familiar, so I probably did use them for school.  Alisa remembered Lokta paper and Kita Kata paper. There was another suggestion, but I should have been smart and taken notes, not just photos. You will have to take her mini workshop to get a list she has found works with felting, or Ann says Ruth does felting with paper, too.

handing out the magic paper5.1) Handing out the magic paper

The plexi gets used again:

Once the foliage and other items were transferred to the magic paper, the plexi sheet was put on top to keep anything from shifting. A couple of boards had things that were lumpy; some were placed on top of the plexi, others were under, but a bit of masking tape was added to ensure nothing shifted.

plexi is now used to hold the plants down on the paper so it wount shift5.2) Plexiglass added to keep plants in place

Now it’s time to face the sun!!

Since I was just doing the photo documentation, I was volunteered as Door holder. Unfortunately, this presented a problem. I know the rules, no but shots!! I had a lot of trouble trying to get shots that kept to at least the essence of the rule.

students putting bords with paper plants and plexi on ground in the sun6.1) putting the light-sensitive paper in the sunlight

As with photo paper, Cyanotype is activated by light. So the prints were left out for the required time. (It was sunny and the smog from forest fires was less today.) Let’s take a peek at a few of the cooking prints.

sitting in the sun sitting in the sun sitting in the sun6.2- 6.4)  sitting in the sun

When the time was up, the boards were carefully brought back into the studio. (trying not to move anything) .

bringing the plexi covered paper and plants on board back into classroom6.5) back into the studio, leaving the plexi on and trying not to shift the leaves and objects

A couple of students at a time would remove their objects from the papers, then add them to the first of two rinse baths.  After the correct time, it was transferred into the second bath. This was to remove the extra active chemicals. This took a while to get through, 22 pictures, 4 at a time, but it was very interesting to see what had been created by the cast shadow of the plants and other objects.

the rinces baths of water and placing the papers back on the board after the rince baths7.1-  7.2)

Felting!!

When most of the images were through their baths, it was time to set up for felting. (I bet you didn’t think  I would ever get to the felting!) Fiona explained which direction to lay the paper images down on the bubble wrap, then demonstrated laying out the wool, which was limited to a measured amount, so all the pieces would be close in weight.

holding combed top and showing how to pull out shingles of fiber to lay on paper8.1) explaining laying out fibre for wet felting.

continuing to demonstrate laying out the fiber on the paper8.2) Laying out the fibre demonstration

Then the students worked in white or blue Merino wool. Most had combed top, but one had merino that may have been a batt at some point, but was now more tufts and clumps.

the students start to lay out fiber, teacher helps as needed8.3)

wetting the fiber covering with buble wrap and then gently rubbing with landry scrubber8.4)

Water was added, then gentle rubbing (effleurage), then gently using the scrubber. Once it was starting to hold together, it was time to roll, first one way, then rotate and roll again. They were not wanting to make a hard felt. The students will be stopping at the pre-felt stage, so Fiona will have options as she felts all the pieces together when she gets home.

rubbing on bubble wrap and students on far side of table rolling 8.5) various stages of rubbing and rolling

Rolling must be done carefully so the paper doesn’t wrinkle as the wool starts to felt and the paper gets entangled with it.

various students rolling felt8.6) more rolling and rubbing

gental tugging with flattened palms to remove wrinkles8.7)  Gentle persuasion removed a small wrinkle that was developing

Sander

We also got a demonstration of using a sander for felting. This speeds up the felting, but especially with this, you can not drag the sander, or you may damage the paper.

demonstrating using sander while felting9.1) Fiona shows the Makita sander

close ups of sander working9.2) Sander working

showing under side of sander with ikea shelf liner instead of sandpaper. there is tuck tape under the plate to keep water from entering the main part of the sander9.3) Under side view of Makita sander

Makita, variable speed sander, with tuck tape applied to the under plate and Ikea Shelf liner where the sandpaper would go.  This is the Expensive model, but it’s much quieter than the less expensive version. (Or the little one I have.) I was told they go on sale around Father’s Day if you are wanting to go hunting for one.

The final result

When the images were the requested size, and had reached the pre-felt stage (holds together but is not yet fully felted, so she can join them together when she gets home, they were finished.)

meusing to make sure size was correct, cutting excess and finished pices more finished pices checking out eachothers pices10.1-10.3) the finished pieces

Samples with this and variations on this technique

Fiona brought with her some samples, which she shared with the students

11.1-11.4 samples

Fiona has not made a final decision as to how she will put all the pieces together when all the group projects have been completed. I think either a medieval rose window, adding felt to make the stone traceries, or maybe a tall Gothic medieval stained glass window, which would give an interesting grid pattern and could be done in a series of windows. (a tryptic or more?) It will be fun to see what she decides to create.

You may have noticed I have a new camera, a Nikon with a wicked zoom lens and extra stabilising. It’s a steep learning curve from my Lumex, but I am trying my best to climb it! You may be muttering about my love of words (many of which I can’t spell), but also my love of photos. I did have a bit of restraint. For this event, I took 618 shots; there were a few with focus problems (stupid essential tremors), but also a few more with odd facial expressions that I ignored. That still left a lot of photos to choose from!

This was fun to photograph, and it looked like the students had both fun and learned a technique they can add to their felting skills. If you are somewhere West or north-west of Ottawa, check and see if Fiona will be somewhere near you too! (Her web contact is at the top of the post.) Have fun and keep felting!

The handsome Hector the white alpaca, fleece shaven, looks straight into the camera
My first foray into plant print screening

My first foray into plant print screening

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I just looked up the meaning of “foray” and I must say, I really didn’t plunge into this activity with any violence. Sorry if I mislead you. If anything, my incursion – is that a better word? – begun because of love.

Love, you ask? Yes, my undying love for Hector! My husband knows he is only second to Hector and is alright with it. You’d understand if you saw him. In fact, let me add a photo of that handsome chap for your enjoyment, and then you tell me if you’re not equally in love.

*drumroll, please*

The handsome Hector the white alpaca, fleece shaven, looks straight into the camera

Isn’t he the most handsomest chap ever? Wouldn’t you sign up to an eco printing workshop if you got to spend some time with this beautiful alpaca? That’s exactly what I did.

Allow me to backtrack just a bit: Hector lives in Birkhill House, and I’ve met up with his human Lara on a few yarn festivals to chat and peruse her wares. I bought a few batts from her, and by coincidence they were all from Hector. Coincidence… or fate? I decided it was fate and from then on decided this was the love of my life and I’d do anything to one day meet the grower of the only alpaca fibre I’ve ever genuinely loved (the others I’ve spun/wore feel itchy!)

Fast forward to the day I bought a full Hector blanket to wash, process and spin. No, fast forward a bit more, to the day Birkhill decided to debut their eco printing workshop. I was so keen to finally meet him! I could thank Hector for the amazing yarns I’ve gotten out of his fibre so far.

First things first, I needed to actually participate in the workshop. Fine, I’ll make that terrible sacrifice. In I go to the working shed and play with plants, merino fabric and wallpaper base.

Plants used for eco dyeing on plastic trays
Plants ready to be chosen and laid out
A strip of fabric with plants on top in an "aesthetic" way
My flimsy efforts. Knowing what I know now, I’d definitely have filled the negative space with more plant material.

Like I said, this was my first time playing with eco printing. I had no idea what I was doing. I was well instructed by Sunshine, our tutor! Love her name, very fitting to her personality.

After we had our plants properly squished between the layer of paper and fabric, and tied up, it was time to add them to the dye bath for a bit. Intermission to look at Birkhill’s plant garden.

Wait, did I mention this workshop was a two-parter? After we looked at the plant garden, there was more fun to be had in the form of solar dyeing. I confess I had a little knee-jerk chuckle at the notion of sunshine dyeing anything in Scotland, but then I remembered I get more sunshine here than I ever did in London and shut up.

It was time to peruse the vast sample of plant dyes available for us to play with. Although I’m familiar with acid dyes, it being my bread and butter and all, I’m very ignorant of natural dyes – so I appreciated the labels for me to read and see what colours they’d yield.

We were given two silk and silk-and-merino micro skeins to add to our jars (mine used to house caviar, how fancy) and were given full freedom to choose which colours and how many to add. I chose three in the red-purple family. After arriving home I placed it by the window and waited.

At the time of writing my micro skeins are almost finished soaking up the dyes and are looking properly red and purple. Unfortunately, also at the time of writing, I have a cat on my lap and we all know it’s illegal to move them, so you’ll just have to imagine how lovely it’s looking at the moment.

Now comes the best part of my visit: alpacas! Have you ever booped an alpaca’s nose? They have no cartilage there and it’s like booping a velvety marshmallow; it feels magic. The next best thing? Feeding an alpaca.

Leonor feeds Hector the alpaca through the fence and has a very goofy smile whilst doing so
Thank you Lara for the photo! My happiness is very real.

I heart Hector!

After all this, our eco printing was ready to unravel and dry.

And that was my half day at the farm with eco printing and alpacas. I hope you enjoyed reading it, thanks for letting me share my love of Hector. I’ll leave you with some Hector skeins I’ve spun so far, all with different techniques. My favourite so far is definitely the semi-woollen using rolags, the yarn is so fluffy.

From left to right: spun semi-worsted from batt, 2-ply; spun semi-worsted from batt, chain-plied; spun semi-woollen from rolags, 2-ply; spun semi-woollen from textured batt turned into rolags, 2-ply (my favourite).

Four skeins of alpaca yarn, hand spun from Hector
I hope you like my cat socks, I left them in for your enjoyment.

Thanks for reading!

Sally's page with printed words in black, white, yellow and orange paint.
Printing Words with Acrylic Paint on to Fabric

Printing Words with Acrylic Paint on to Fabric

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My art group tried another technique with paper, acrylic paint and fabric. It’s mainly used to make fabric or paper that is then cut up and used in collage.

Louise, Paula and Sally working on word printing on paper and fabric around a wooden table.

It’s a simple process. You apply a “writing tip” to the paint bottle, write some words on paper and then press the paper with the acrylic writing on to fabric. You  then have printed words on fabric but the words are backwards on your fabric. I like this better since it makes the words hard to read. You can still see that it is words but it isn’t “a cute saying” easily read.

Here you can see Sally has written words in white acrylic paint on the brown paper and then she is pressing her fabric down on to the paper to transfer the words.

I wrote on book pages (which I will use later as backgrounds or tear up for collage) and then printing on to fabric. I used lines from the poem “Think Like a Tree” by Karen Shragg. You can see that the words aren’t really legible but it still conveys writing.

Louise writing with black acrylic paint on to book page.

Louise is writing with black acrylic paint on to a book page.

Paula's collaged page of printed words.

Paula was working only on paper this time. She collaged her pieces of torn, printed paper together on to book pages.

Here are a couple of pieces of fabric that Sally printed. The purple circles in the right photo are from eco printing with purple carrots. Sally then printed the words on top of that. It gives a graffiti look, doesn’t it?

Here are the two pieces that I created. These were done on pre-painted canvas (a light wash of grey) which had then been stained with tea in places.  Then I printed the tree poem on top of that. I will use these as some book pages in my altered book I have been working on.  If you’re looking for a fun and easy project, this technique definitely qualifies. You can write whatever you like and get those thoughts out of your brain, but it won’t be legible enough for someone else to read your innermost thoughts.

Quicker and Cheaper?

Quicker and Cheaper?

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For some years now I’ve been selling my work in local galleries and from a  ‘fisherman’s hut’ in Whitstable harbour market.

For many traders in the harbour market, sales seem to have been down over the last year, and I’ve noticed that people are frequently buying smaller and cheaper things from everyone, like smaller pictures, or prints rather than original pictures. Sales in the galleries have held up a bit better for me so far.

I decided to see if I could produce some felt pictures more cheaply without compromising on quality.

I wrote here last September about having to make a lot of pictures for a big exhibition. I developed a new line of work that I could produce at speed. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2024/09/05/the-mother-of-invention/

I decided to take my nuno printed tree pictures one stage further to make them a little smaller (less felting time, fewer materials) and offer them unframed (lower material costs).

I’ve realised that using recycled silk or fine wool scarves is a quick way of creating patterns within a felt picture. It can significantly reduce layout time as your fabric does a lot of the work for you.  I then thought that I could cut down on fulling time as well if I made two pictures at a time. 

I then had a presentation question.  I normally have my frames handmade by a local maker. Would I go down the mass-produced frame or the no frame route? I decided to start with the no frame option. I found a provider of inexpensive but good quality picture mount kits that include a back board, mount and cellophane bag.

I made the felt for four pairs of pictures; cutting them apart before printing a different tree on each. I took these photos as a record rather than to present so they’re not the best, sorry.

For the top pair I used a fine wool scarf, for the bottom two, a silk scarf
A recycled silk scarf provides the pattern for this pair
I’ve used a fine wool scarf for these

Do you have a favourite? I think the one top left is mine.

I had 5 weeks of sales / exhibitions in June (one of two weeks and one of three, overlapping – I know, poor planning) and sold 4 of the 8, so I’m pretty happy with this experiment.  What next? I will probably make a few more of these and I might source some sample frames to go along with them. Maybe I’ll get my local frame-maker to make one then buy a couple of cheaper mass produced ones so people can see what the options are.  Framing is much more expensive than many people realise. I’m also offering photos of some of my bird felt pictures, and prints of some of my (non-felt) photographs in the same unframed format. I’ve sold three of these so far so will see how they go.

I thought I’d finish with a follow up to my sample making blog from March. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2025/03/09/auditioning-fabrics/

I made each of the samples into cards and here they are.

Repurposing and Card Making

Repurposing and Card Making

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Around mid-November I was rummaging in a chest of drawers trying to create space for visitors to store their clothes, while also thinking about  making some felt Christmas cards to sell at various events.  I came across a scarf I’d felted more than 10 years ago and never done anything with.

Scarf I made more than 10 years ago
View of scarf from the other end

‘Hmmm…..’ I thought. ‘This is taking up space and I’ll never wear it.’  

Why not?  Firstly, I can’t wear wool next to my skin.  I find it way too prickly/itchy. And secondly, I didn’t like how it had felted. You could almost see the little thought bubble appear above my head: “I wonder if I could make some Christmas cards out of this?”

The scarf didn’t fit the bill for a traditional Christmassy look, but that’s one of the things that appealed to me about it. 

Let’s first go back to the scarf-making, in April / March 2014.  No, I’m not an exceptional record-keeper, I just have a lot of photos on my phone and happily they’re all automatically dated.   

I started off with a bright orange silk scarf I’d found in a charity shop. It was what I think of as raw silk: soft and loosely woven. I wasn’t even sure it would felt well but, foolish as I was in those days, it didn’t occur to me to make a sample, I just ploughed on optimistically.

I decided to add shapes in bright rainbow colours so made a big sheet of multi-coloured merino wool light prefelt, broadly following the colours of the rainbow. 

Light ‘rainbow’ prefelt

I cut circular shapes out of it and laid them along the scarf, still following the rainbow sequence. I laid orange merino round the edges and set about felting it.

Original scarf layout

When it was finished, I wasn’t very pleased with it.  The silk was unstructured and flimsy and it seemed to hang wrongly. I don’t think that type of raw silk works well as a base for felting, certainly not on its own. I didn’t take a photo of it.

I left it for a while and came back to it about a year later.  I thought maybe felting a solid wool layer on the reverse might improve the hang and structure.  I felted 2 layers of white merino onto the back.  Now it was firmer but a bit too stiff and still didn’t hang well, but in a different way. I just wasn’t happy with it.

That’s the point at which I gave up on it and popped it into a drawer. Since then it’s been shunted around but I’ve never decided what to do with it…..until now.

On to the card making. I decided simple triangular tree shapes might be nice for festive cards so I made myself a little tree template and set about the scarf with my rotary cutter. 

Cutting up the scarf to make triangle tree shapes

For the first few cards I refelted all the cut edges of each triangle.  This was nice, but took quite a long time both to do and to dry, so I decided to go with raw edges: it didn’t make a lot of difference to the appearance and it certainly speeded up the making. I cut out some different card and paper backgrounds, glued them onto cards, stuck the trees to the backgrounds and drew a stem and decorative dot on top of each tree. Mostly I used acrylic pens but where I didn’t have a suitable colour I used other permanent markers. Here’s the first batch.

Some of the triangles were a little plain and, as I had my acrylic pens out, I decided to do a bit of doodling. I admit, I was rather enjoying myself by this stage.  Perhaps I got a bit carried away (some of the trees started to look like pizza slices)!

I grouped the trees into threes, choosing ones that had three different colours on them wherever possible. I found some bright pre-cut papers and chose the nearest colours to the trees in each group. Then I swapped them around so that each tree was on a background that matched one of the others in its group.  I finished off by swapping the colours again for the dots and stems.  

Here’s a close up. The trees have green, purple and turquoise on them. I picked out the matching papers, put the lime green tree on the purple paper, the turquoise tree on the green paper and purple tree on the turquoise paper. Then I finished off with the dot and stem in the third colour that wasn’t on the tree or background paper.

It’s hard to describe just how much I was enjoying myself, though some of that may be because I was almost certainly supposed to be doing something boring like cleaning or tidying up.

I did sell some of the cards and sent a few too.  They’re not the best cards I’ve ever made but I did enjoy making them and was happy to have repurposed a scarf that didn’t really work.  I still have plenty of felt scarf left so I may do something else with it in the future.

A little later, I made some other cards that I liked better and that sold really well. 

In my charity shop moochings I recently found a really beautiful, large hand-marbled silk scarf.  It was way more expensive than anything I normally buy.  I’m normally in the £2 – £4 range for a silk scarf and this was £8.50.  However, it really was big and interesting and I was intrigued as to how well it would felt. So, I splashed the cash. The marbled dyes sit on the surface of the fabric so I wondered how well the wool fibres would penetrate the silk. Age and experience do have their advantages: this time I made a small sample to make sure it felted well, which it did.  

I cut out a long rectangle of merino and silk prefelt and laid a section of the scarf full length along it, flush with the edge of one long side and covering half of the width.  Sorry, I forgot to take a photo so I here’s a quick sketch, literally on the back of an envelope.

Once it was felted and dry, I cut it into thin strips ready for printing. I’d found a royalty-free image of a plain green fir tree and, using photoshop elements, dotted it with robins to look like baubles. I printed the images on heat transfer paper, then, using my heat press, printed a tree on some of the strips. I stuck the strips to long cards and this was the result.  Not as much fun to make as the other cards but I do like the result better.

8 ‘Robins’ cards above and a close up of one of them, below

On the remaining strips, I printed an image of a friend’s cat, to which I’d added (in photoshop) a Santa hat.  I had six felt strips for the cat but one didn’t print properly which left me with five.  I thought I’d better save one to send to the cat owner and was going to offer the other four for sale but my cat-owning friend decided he’d like to send the cards, so bought all four.  There are lots of cat and dog lovers around so maybe I’ll make some of those next year.  What do you think?

Four ‘Layla’ cards above and a close up below

While I was on a roll, I repeated the process using an animal print scarf and a blue patterned scarf to make some cards that are not season-specific. People do seem to like this type of design and quite a few say they or the recipients will cut them out to make a bookmark or just put the card in a frame. The horse chestnut is from a painting my Mum did, the honesty was composed from some photos I’d taken, the ferns were from a royalty-free image I found online and the birds are all from photos of my previous large felt pictures.

I know I’ve said it more than once before but I do love a bit of fabric re-purposing, whether second-hand or from a failed project.

Green "branchy" background added to purple ornament card.
Painting Christmas Cards

Painting Christmas Cards

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Happy Winter Solstice! It’s the shortest day of the year so we’re on to longer days now. Yay! The shorter days make it a bit dreary sometimes but I decided to create some Christmas cards to cheer myself up. I saw this method on numerous posts and videos online so I can’t credit one person for the idea. This method makes it fairly simple to create ornaments or baubles for a card with watercolors.

Artist's workbench with watercolor set up for creating cards, including palettes, brushes, water and paint rimmed jar.

Here’s my set up in the studio. I had several palettes of paint and it works best with two brushes I found. I didn’t use the very thin detail brush until the end. Also, two sources of water, one kept clean, work well too. I found a couple of glass jars in different sizes that would work on my 5″ x 7″ cards.

Glass jar rim being painted with red watercolor paint.

Get some “juicy” watercolor on to the edge of the glass jar and print it on to your paper or card.

Using clean wet watercolor brush to "grab" red color from edge of printed circle.

Then quickly add clean water around the edge to get the paint moving. You can also use your other “juicy” brush to add in more color while the paper is still wet. Remember to leave some white spots for the “shine” on the ornament.

Using gold gel pen to add ornament top to purple round ornament.

I painted sixteen of these in four different colors. This photo shows using a gold gel pen to add the ornament top and string.

Four pieces of watercolor paper with painted ornaments in a variety of colors.

Here’s what the cards looked like after that. I wanted to add something in the background or something more festive. I started with the “gold” ones.

Golden ornaments decorated with pine greenery and splatters.

I added greenery and some splatters. But I wasn’t particularly happy with the look.  It’s okay but I decided to try something different on the other colors.

Green background added to red ornament card.

I started with the red ornaments, added water to the background and dropped in some green paint. Okay, but still not exactly what I wanted.

Green "branchy" background added to blue ornament card.

I changed my green color and then worked on trying to make the background look more like pine branches. This was looking better.

Green "branchy" background added to purple ornament card.

So I finished out the purple ornaments in the same way. Then I glued them down to a regular 5″ x 7″ greeting card with Yes Paste. I have found that is the easiest glue method with cards/paper. So now, my Christmas cards are off in the mail. It was a fun activity and really pretty simple. If you want to try it, there are quite a few YouTube videos showing the process.

results of the dye experiments - closer view
Adventures in colour (Part 2)

Adventures in colour (Part 2)

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In my last post I talked about a 4 week dyeing course that I attended a while ago at Sharon Wells studio https://www.sharonwellsart.com/ . The first week was dedicated to acid dyeing and we have fantastic results from it. Week 2 was all about natural dyeing, our colours were more subtle and totally restful. If you missed part 1 you can catch it at adventures-in-colour-part-1

I talk about the third and fourth sessions in this blog. I hope you enjoy!

Week 3:

This week’s session was all about the production of pigment. Sharon started off by showing us some ‘tools of the trade’; the glass mulling tool and tempered glass which, along with an old coffee grinder, she uses to grind elements into powder. We learnt about the difference between dye (dissolves in water) and pigment (disperses in water and so needs a carrier). Then we discussed types of pigment; earth and animal both of which can be ground into powder and animal, which needs a totally different process. We mixed various powers and produced test sheets using the pigments as both oil and watercolour paints. We also tried artificial pigments. It was very exciting. Here is a quick look at some of the day.

  • All the processes for making earth pigments



































  • Linseed, used as the medium for oils
  • The water colour medium
  • A new student dropped in, but had other things on her mind
  • Ground down sea shells. There is still some grit in the mix so it was not fine enough
  • preparing the sea shells to accept the medium
  • Artificial pigments containing mica, they made delicious colours
  • The mulling tool is used for fine grinding and mixing the pigment with the medium.

The real excitement happened when we started making botanical pigments. Sharon boiled up some onion skins and in no time we had a beautiful golden brown coloured liquid which she shared out among the group. She then dissolved aluminium sulphite (alum) and soda crystals in two containers. We added the alum to our onion skin liquid and then watched in fascination as the soda crystals reacted to the liquid when we poured it in. The pigment separated from the liquid and we were, in the end, left with clear liquid. We then strained our pigment and dried it. Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the fun we had:

  • The onion skins were left to simmer for about an hour
    The onion skins were left to simmer for about an hour
  • The strained onion skin dye bath
  • measuring the aluminium sulphate before dissolving it
  • The aluminium Sulphate and soda crystals (in the peanut butter tub). The onion skin dye bath is in the background
  • The chemical reaction once the alum and soda crystals get going
  • Separation of the onion skin pigment.
  • The pigment attaches to the alum once the soda crystals are added to the mix.
  • The onion skin pigment drying at home
  • The final pigment was filtered through a coffee filter and left to dry
  • The bottle contains bluebell pigment which was prepared from the flowers in the tutor’s garden
  • Olive leaf pigment produced a lovely colour
  • Four botanical pigments: 1. Marigold 2. 'wild Eve' Rose 3. Olive leaf 4. bluebell
    Four botanical pigments: 1. Marigold 2. ‘wild Eve’ Rose 3. Olive leaf 4. bluebell
  • preparing the sea shells to accept the medium

The whole process had us all enthralled and ready to try it at home!

Week 4:

 

 

The final class in the dyeing series focussed on Procion Dyes . The class was led by Anne Jefferies, and Irish Textile artist and tutor. We used cold water dyes this time and worked with plant based fibre including different weights and textures of cotton, linen and silk. We also experimented dyeing a variety of different threads. Anne explained the full process and provided excellent notes so there was very little need to write which was good because our hands were very busy. Anne prepared the various solutions and we got to work using pure primary colours. We divided our samples into three lots and tied each piece of fabric into whatever shape we fancied then we got dyeing. We started with the lightest colour, yellow and dyed our first batch. Then we removed and rinsed these and retied a number of them, ones we wanted to overdye and popped these into the the dye bath to which some red dye had been added. We then added our second batch of undyed samples and watched the magic occur. We then removed all of these and set up a fresh dye bath for the blue. Here are some of the photos taken on the day:

 

 

  • Various small samples of white fabric which have been tied with string elastic bands paper clips and pegs
    Preparing the fabrics
  • Primary colour Procion dyes mixed with water and ready to be added to the fibres
    The prepared Procion dyes mixed and ready for use
  • First colour to be used yellow in basin along with various fabrics tied in various ways and prepared for dyeing
    Stirring the yellow dye into the fabric
  • table with two basins yellow dye added to fabric, participant stirring one of the basins
    Stirring in the yellow dye – starting with the lightest colour
  • Table covered in a towel, lots of dye spills fabric samples at various stages of dyeing
    Work in progress on a messy table. Good reason to keep everything covered!
  • Various white cotton silks linen and rayon threads tied to a card ready for experimental dyeing
    Dye testing a variety of threads
  • Primay colours have been added to the various cotton, silk linen and rayon threads
    The thread experiment with dye added
  • Syringe is used to measure out the amount of the dye. It is being added to the red dye bath
    Adding more red dye to the bath
  • fabric added to the second dye bath of red. Fabrics have been retied and added to the top bath. a second bath contains retied fabrics which are waiting to be added to the top bath
    Next experiment: red has been added to the mix and the fabrics have been retied
  • Bath of red dye being stirring by one person while a second person adds more fabric samples to the bath
    A two person job! stirring the bath and adding the fibre.
  • Various fabrics from the participants, dyed red, blue yellow and green
    Some nice surprises when we opened our little parcels
  • Lots of results of the dyes samples laid out on a table
    A colourful table!
  • results of the dye experiments - closer view
    More samples ready for dyeing

Here is a slideshow of my dried samples. I can’t decide which is my favourite! Having said that, I am showing them all as some were disasters but still deserve an airing.

  • Sample with dark green, light green light blue and yellow vertical lines
    Definitely one of my favourites. Reminds me of strobe lighting!
  • Blue on blue sunbursts. Heavy cotton
    I tied these with some string (but you guessed that already)!
  • Blue on blue abstract patters way too subtle to be of interest. I might over dye it. Yet to be decided
    Not a great result. If I stare at it long enough I might see something!
  • Light cotton. Light green with lighter green sunbursts. Pattern is a bit more uniform that other experiments
    This is a bigger piece of light cotton. The pattern is a little more uniform. I might use it for nuno. Decision yet to be finalised
  • Blues; the top section has series of vertical lines, the bottom section is very blotchy
    The pattern caught nicely in places but not in others
  • Different colour blues with some vertical boxes
    Subtle? Interesting? not sure
  • Light green background with three yellow and blue sunburst circles
    Sunburst circles a little too subtle I think!
  • Blue dye on fabric no great pattern
    Not a great result but it is one of the experiments so it is being included
  • dark blue and light blue blobs
    These look like clouds, lined up in rows!
  • Lines and circles on blue and green linen
    The longer I stare, the more patterns I see with this
  • Light and darker blue abstract finish on heavy cotton
    Interesting subtle finish on this one.
  • Green blue and yellow sample with squares running diagonally and vertically
    The colours are not as faded in the sample. Love all the squares.
  • Multicoloured samples with lots of different designs on it. Heavy cotton
    This one has a lot going on. Spot the paperclip!
  • Red white and blue sample that did not take well
    Perhaps not one of the best samples but it’s good to see this too!
  • Red heavy cotton with white thick lines and squares
    I find this quite attractive. I wish I could remember how I achieved the lines and squares!
  • Tie dye on silk red and yellow
    Lots going on here. The colours are richer than the photo
  • Warm colours on silk. Tie dyed to form circles
    A real sunburst, pity the piece was cut from the bottom corner!
  • Silk, red dye with vertical thick lines, similar to texture of bamboo cane
    One of my favourites! reminds me of bamboo cane
  • Salmon pink dye on heavy cotton lace
    A heavy cotton lace again a tiny piece. I might add it to some nuno sometime!
  • Heavy cotton abstract blue in top left forming diagonal lines, red and purple background
    I like the diagonal lines in this sample
  • Small sample silk abstract design in red blue and white
    This is a small piece of silk. I wish I had two meters as it would make a fabulous top!

I loved these classes. They were a mix of great fun, camaraderie and fantastic learning. They have demystified some of the processes around dyeing and I now feel confident in trying them myself. Thank you Sharon https://www.sharonwellsart.com/ for facilitating this wonderful experience!

Paper coasters with natural dyed organic patterns.
Another Art Retreat

Another Art Retreat

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My last post was about an art retreat and normally, I would just have one a year to tell you about.  But this year, I had two only weeks apart. This is the annual retreat that my small art group does in late summer/early fall at the Kiwanis Lodge on Little Bitterroot Lake.

Landscape of Little Bitterroot Lake with pine trees in foreground and mountains in background on a cloudy day.

This is the view off the deck of the lodge. The weather was a bit cool and rainy but so much better than smoky skies from wildfires.

This year we decided to play around with making our own natural inks, printing and painting with the inks and then doing some bookmaking.

Before anyone points out that many of these types of ink are fugitive and might not last, we realize that. We were just playing around to see what happens and what colors we could get as a result. No “serious” artwork is being made from these inks.

We started by grinding up Haskap berries (Fly Honeysuckle) with a bit of water and straining the result. That is the bright red color on one of the acrylic printing plates in the foreground of the left hand photo. We also ground up beets, grass and kale and tried grinding choke cherries. The choke cherries were a disaster but Sally tried boiling them after she got home and got much better results than the fresh berries.

So Paula had gotten all of us some acrylic printing plates which we covered with ink and then let dry. We left watercolor paper in a baggie with water to get damp overnight and then printed the next morning. The two photos on the left show different prints and the photo on the right was painting haskap berry ink on to a page and soaking three squares of felt in the ink and laying these down on the paper. The ink changed colors depending on oxidization and what paper it was applied to.

Make Ink book by Jason Logan.

This is the book we referred to for various recipes and what mordants or modifiers to use with different foraged materials.

Drawing organic lines with oak gall ink on to previously printed watercolor paper.

I also added further ink (oak gall with ferrous sulfate) to one of my prints with my new fountain pens. I wanted to get used to using the fountain pens so this was good practice.

We then set about making a bunch of inks including hibiscus, acorn caps, acorn caps with ferrous sulfate, oak gall with ferrous sulfate, avocado, turmeric, blue pea flower and walnut ink. Paula also brought copper ink which takes several weeks to make but is the most beautiful blue. We put these in small individual jars with a whole clove to keep the ink from molding. These are now stored in the refrigerator in hopes of keeping them good a bit longer. These should be used fairly quickly. Paula had some that she had stored in the fridge for 6 months or so and they were mostly dull and brown and had lost their original color.

We then set about making little samples of the colors from these various inks. And then you can start adding the different inks together and see how they mix on the page. Such fun!

Table set up with blue pea flower dyes and various modifiers.

Our next set of experiments were with blue pea flower. Apparently, you can buy this as a tea. All you do is steep the blue pea flowers and then add different modifiers. The modifiers that we used were baking powder, baking soda, vinegar, cream of tartar and vinegar. The modifiers change the color of the ink.

Sampling of blue pea flower ink with a variety of modifiers.

Here is some lovely sampling of the different colors that you can get from the blue pea flower inks. They range from green to blue green to blue to purple.

Here are a couple of landscapes that I painted with blue pea flower dye. I love how they mix on the paper and the variations that you get.

You can also paint your paper with blue pea flower ink and then drop dry modifiers on top such as baking powder or baking soda. You really get some interesting effects with that.

Shibori tissue paper dyed with inks glued to watercolor papers to create bookmarks.

We did put some ink on shibori folded tissue paper that could then be overlaid on previously inked watercolor paper and glued down to make bookmarks.

Paper coasters with natural dyed organic patterns.

Paula supplied us with white paper coasters and we played with ink on those too. The left is a combination of walnut ink, acorn caps and oak gall. The right is blue pea flower and hibiscus with baking soda dropped on top while still wet.

Here a three of the books that I created at the retreat. The middle one was using a bit too thin paper which had not been ironed so it is a little sad. But I learned how to fold the triangular pages which was fun. I was using papers that I had previously printed with deconstructed screen printing.

I took my tree specimen book with me and painted one of the plastered pages with oak gall. The photo on the left shows that page which was interesting. The photo on the right is Sally’s book where she has collage parts of the page and added oak gall ink to as well.

We had the best time and thanks to Paula for most of our supplies. We also want to thank the Kalispell Kiwanis Club for letting us stay at the lodge each year!

Handmade book open to a page with a sketch of a pine branch in charcoal.
Tree Specimen Book Continues

Tree Specimen Book Continues

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I haven’t shown my tree specimen book since March. The main reason for this is because I got a bit discouraged. The book has plaster coated pages on canvas that were meant for sketches. But the pages are very rough so I needed to get more gesso to apply on top. I also decided to get some charcoal to use for a bit more “rough” sketching.  I got my supplies, painted all the canvas pages with gesso, let that dry for a while and then tried a sketch.

Handmade book open to a page with a sketch of a pine branch in charcoal.

The pages are still very rough and are difficult to sketch on. I was disappointed with my sketch and really didn’t enjoy the process. So that discouraged doing any more sketches. The book sat for quite a while with nothing added.

 

Then when I was painting other things, I had leftover paint. I hate to waste paint so I decided I would start painting the canvas pages. Then I could add more on top and there wouldn’t be that intimidating white page (that I didn’t like the feel when sketching).

Handmade book open to a page with a print of a tree and definition of tree collaged on top.

I showed you this one before but I added the definition of tree to the bottom. The fun thing about this book, is that you can keep adding as you go.

Handmade book open to a page with a print of a thicket of trees.

Here’s another print of a thicket of trees that I added.

Handmade book open to a page with a print of a tree stump and cut out leaves.

And this one is a print of a tree stump and some little blue leaves that I got from one of my friends. Thanks Christa!

So I haven’t given up on my book. I’m not sure it will ever be “finished”, but that’s OK. I will continue to add bits and bobs as time goes by.

 

 

Handmade book open to center page spread with inked background page of orange and green covered partially by printed autumn leaves.
Tree Specimen Book Update

Tree Specimen Book Update

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If you missed my other posts about this mixed media handmade book you can find post #1 here, post #2 and post #3. It’s a work in progress that I’m taking slowly, adding bits and pieces as I get inspired.

Handmade book open to one page with eco printed background and print of aspen branch with leaves and catkins.

As I was getting ready for my upcoming Level 4 Art and Design class which will involve printmaking, I was going through my stamps and also some previously printed papers that I haven’t used. I thought they would make a good addition to the book. This is a print of an aspen branch with leaves and catkins. I added the black outline with a felt pen. The aspen branch is printed on the back of an eco print.

Handmade book open to one page with brown painted background page and black print of weeping birch on multi colored paper.

I found a print of a weeping birch which I added to this painted brown paper page.

Handmade book showing one page with painted green background and glued cut out of aspen branch from multi colored paper.

While I was looking through my prints, I found a cutout of another aspen branch. I’m not sure what I made it for but thought it was perfect for this green painted page. I might add a few more details into the leaves with colored pencil. I’m not sure yet.

Handmade book open to center page spread with inked background page of orange and green.

The back of the green painted paper above, was white. I added some ink in orange, green and brown around the edges so the white wouldn’t show around the print I planned to add there. This is the center of the book.

Handmade book open to center page spread with inked background page of orange and green covered partially by printed autumn leaves.

Here is is with the print I added. I also finally bought some gesso and added it to all the white pages. Now I can do some painting or sketching on those pages with more ease.

Handmade book open to one page with brown wrinkled paper background and black and gree print of leaves hanging down.

Here’s the last print I added. I have more prints, but for now, I think I have added enough. This book has a lot of pages and I have a long way to go to get it completely filled. I think I will start sketching on the white pages next.

Collage of felted lotus pod created in online class by Glady Paulus.

And for those of you who think I haven’t done any felting for a long time, here’s a felted lotus pod that I created for an online class I took with Gladys Paulus. The class was marvelous and if you get a chance, it’s well worth taking.

Also, registration is open for Helene Dooley’s Hanging Felted Spiral online class. Click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page to register. This is a great class to learn more about complex three dimensional felting. You need to be an intermediate felt maker who has worked with resists and three dimensional felting. The class is online and can be accessed throughout the class period at any time. You don’t need to be online at any certain time. So join Helene to create wonderful felted spirals!