Jan 27
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
My mother (for reasons too complicated to go into) gave me feathers from a deceased parakeet – a bag full of tiny blue fluffs – and I tried to see if I could paint them a beautiful enough blue, and if the tiny fluffy bits would work. They did, sort of, but they are not thick/heavy enough to use as a resist.
Week 4 black ice
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
I’ve been thinking about showing layers of things, veils of snow or fog across the landscape, a scene out a window, or here, leaves in black ice on a pond.
I used to skate (cue old lady voice “back when i was a child we used to have real winters, and we could skate on the pond in back of our house. I used to go down through the woods with my skates clanking on my back to the stock pond. After sitting in a snowbank to get my skates on, I’d push off onto the ice, and see how bumpy it was. After still cold weather, with little or no snow, the ice would be so clear it seemed I should be able to see fish in it. After some skating I’d lie on the ice staring down into it, focusing alternately on my own reflection and how far into the pond I could see. I always hoped the boy I had a crush on would come and see me, either being graceful or thoughtful… he never did”)
I thought about putting in the back of a turtle, or a fish, but then I didn’t.
Jan 26
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
The transfer paper I have suggests that I could paint or draw on it as well as running it through the printer. So I tried.
Sharpie markers: ripped the transfer medium, didn’t work
water color paint: went on nicely, transferred nicely
oil pastels: went on nicely, didn’t transfer well
basic crayola markers: if new and juicy, went on well and transferred well
water soluble crayons: if wet worked well, if dry ripped medium
Pitt art pens: nice and juicy, transferred well
colored pencils: too hard, didn’t work
basic crayons: too hard, didn’t work
The flickr picture has little boxes around the different media, and small commentary. I’m not really thrilled with any of it except the water color paints, and I’m not sure when I’d want to use indirection with water color paints rather than just use Pebeo paints directly on the fabric. However, I have this knowledge for future reference.
TIF 5 center
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
I was thinking about the overwhelming urge, imperative even, to “work into” the leaf some more, even though I love the way it looks right now, so I thought to try embroidery using nearly invisible thread. I am not at all sure I like it. I preferred the visibility of the veins in the purple side, and they have been obscured now with stitching, even though the thread is clear.
I used the same thread on the 1/2 leaves in the border. Aside from the crinkling where they are tacked down over velvet I rather like the upholstered look. But that center piece… dunno
TIF border
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
TIF 4 center
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
I sat down and worked on this steadily for more than two hours today, and I am feeling pretty chipper about it.
I have a grid of 9 leaves, this is the center panel, with four more printed on satin and four others printed on chiffon. I am thinking about what to do for a border, to keep things from flying too far out from the center. On the whole the colors are close to what we were given, with a range around the purples and greens. Unfortunately, I have been unable to create or apply the clear blue-green from the palette. I’m not sure if I get demerits for that or not!
Circus class today, and even though I was in a vile mood, I did really well and had fun. I climbed the fabric repeatedly, and climbed half way up and did a foot lock. There is one goal accomplished. I still have to master a cross-back straddle up. Bronwyn showed me how to do a roll-up, so I practiced low down (so she could get me out if I got stuck) and next week I’ll try it higher up. Red Kate flew me like an airplane, and I did a kind of front neck stand on her back. (Impossible to describe – I’ll bring the camera next week.)
Week 3 lace and feathers
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
The week 3 work. I am still working with natural materials as resists and substrates for transfers. I remembered I had pressed some Queen Anne’s Lace in the phone book at the end of the summer to make it thin enough for sun printing. It works well for transfers as well, showing the sweet branching nature of it very nicely.
I am still coming to grips with the delicacy of the resulting images, particularly on satin. I don’t want to work into them because they feel perfect already – I can’t add anything to them by stitching them, so I tried stitching around them to make their perfection pop out. The best example here is the golden/brown feather at the bottom. I rather like the way that came out, and I’m thinking I should pursue things with more elaborate edges.
I still have the TIF challenge to finish up over the next two weeks. Yikes!
I’m home sick. Not hideously, lie on the couch and moan sick, but stagger about slowly and sit down frequently sick. Which is quite bad enough.
In response to those who asked questions I have some of the following answers:
Transfer paints are simple to use. They work best on man made fabrics, specifically polyester. They also work on cotton and linen, but give much more muted colors. I have experimented with transferring onto polyester satin, crepe, chiffon, velvet and a cotton/poly broadcloth. All worked quite well, with deep color transfer. I tried transferring onto silk chiffon, and the color passed cleanly through and made a gorgeous image on my ironing board cover.
Mine came from Embroidery Adventures, which doesn’t exist any more. I found some available in Canada from the Opulence Textile Art Catalog and the G&S Dye catalog, and in England from Fibrecrafts.com and Berol , ThreadStudio in Australia also has them. I know they are available elsewhere. Workshop on the Web (WoW) advertisers frequently have them, and WoW also has published tutorials and articles about using them.
Use is very simple: paint onto plain paper, let dry, iron onto fabric. The mess is minimal, about the equivalent of poster paints. The color does not change the hand of the fabric at all that I can feel. The colors quite brilliant on polyester, and I’ve had some trouble getting more subdued or delicate colors. Getting full-on black or blue is pretty easy. The colors I have are the CMYK printing primaries (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and if you have a printed color chart you can find the color you want and mix it using simple percentages. The color on the paper IS NOT what you will get on the fabric, and it takes some trial and error to figure out how to get exactly the color you might want. Unless you are happy with kismet in the color department. Which works too.
There are two books that address transfer paints explicitly. Beaney and Littlejohn wrote Transfer to Transform in 1999, republished in paperback in 2000. Linda Kemshalls also wrote a book called Color Moves, in 2001.
It sounds too simple to be true, as though I am leaving something out, but truly, that is all there is to it. Go get some, see what you can do.
Jan 18b
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
I routinely get caught up in the details of things – I love a feather, the twist of a shell, the curve of a child’s cheek – I can have difficulty finding the big picture. So realizing that with transfer paints I can paint a feather, or a leaf, and get the most outrageous level of detail onto the fabric is intoxicating. I find that once I have transferred these things I just stare at them, because, well, they’re nearly perfect.
I mean, isn’t this feather enough to stop your breath for a moment? Or these?
Jan 18a
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
Friday early morning it snowed, and then freezing rained on top. The back porch snow drooped off the railing like this:
Some kind of heavy duty surface tension going on there – there really was not anything under the snow, it just formed a catenary curve all by itself. Of course, it didn’t last long. The sun came out and the back yard glittered like diamonds, coated in ice like this:
And then it all melted in 40F degree weather.
Jan 17a
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.
I sprung for a new transfer marker today – browsing Michaels craft catastrophe and the marker followed me home. So did a small packet of dried ferns (for transfers) and a new pad of list paper because I’ve lost the other two pads I had for shopping lists.
I mention this only because I am trying to Not Buy Anything because really I have enough stuff to make decades worth of postcards. Or what ever else I decide I am going to make this year. So – no more stuff. I’m shopping my stash, and it is pretty fun so far.
An entire day of running errands. Not peaceful, but nice to be done. And there is more light in the living room.
Lee Thomson 