Here we go, here we go!!!!

At last Chapter 3 'Transform and Personalise' took a while but here it is. the idea was to take materials from my stash and transform them using some unusual colourants. although the colourants i used were not so unconventional they were certainly messy!

i love this paper its a sandwich wrapper that is slightly glazed on one side.

 

1. creases made with a ruler then graphite and coal dust worked in.

more sandwich paper

2. More graphite, chalk and coal dust. chalk worked through a mesh of holes.

shoe box tissue

3.and more of the same, sample on the right has oil worked into it to make it transparent.

brown wrapping paper

4. using old type stamps with ink, turmeric, coal and oil with a strip of aqua wax at the top

brown paper and plastic

5. brown paper folded with metal pieces i found on the pavement by a bus stop and rusted with vinegar, i have then printed with coal dust in 'water effects' using creased sausage skin as a carrier. the piece of plastic is what was left from my rusting process, so it does work on plastic!

an old drawing and brown paper

6. i used an old drawing i wasn't happy with to work more rust and the lower sample was rusted with oil and ink blots added after.

aleut bird skin parka looks like ink blots

not quite recycled but i didn't buy it recently!

7. i was thinking of the transparency of gut and thought of devore! i still have some mix in my fridge from way back and as you can see it still worked! the sample on the left was soaked in turmeric before the process, again i was thinking of the bits that are put into the seams on gut parkas and i have a thing for the bits of paper that are left when you tear file paper off a sheet so used them as masks. sample on the right was stitched and gathered then printed with the gunk, dried and stitches removed.

Chinese character practise paper

8. more ink blots and sausage skin prints

scrap of note pad and old baking parchment

9. more inkblots with 'water effects' and coal etc

old bank envelope and calico

10. i made some egg tempera with coal dust and more shibori, the sample on the right was soaked in turmeric before, the stitching was removed after printing through a screen. i like the shiny quality of the tempera but not the smell! afterwards i was reading other recipes which mention putting something in to stop mould growth which i wish i had done considering how wet it is down here!

all in all this has been quite a smelly chapter, oil, coal dust, turmeric and egg pleased i didn't use compost. 

Lets go back to Chapter 5!

it has taken quite a while for me to do this chapter, time to devote to it, waiting for devoré paste then fabric, then i decided to buy a proper screen for screen printing as i knew i would use it again and ........ So here goes and by the way Art Van Go don't stock 'Fibre Etch' anymore as they say it was too harsh! so firstly in #1 i used the devoré paste freehand in the top one and with a 'Thermofax' screen on the lower one. both on cotton organdie to create actual holes.

# 2 for some reason i had a whole collection of Whaleys devoré fabric samples so i tested my screen on these and it was quite interesting to see the different results. so top left is cotton/poly jersey, poly/rayon and linen,silk/viscose satin, then next row down from left silk/viscose Georgette, wool/viscose/nylon, poly/viscose and finally poly/cotton. i decided to buy some of the poly/viscose as this had given a really striking effect.

#3 shows my screen in use with a paper template as a mask between the screen and the fabric, the paste has made the fabric transparent and the brightly coloured squares is the plastic table protector. i decided whilst waiting for various deliveries that i would prepare templates and cut outs ready, so i worked with images i had used before for previous chapters.all the pieces are about A4 in size.

#4 once the paste is dry (and it can take quite a while) it is ironed on a gentle setting till it turns brown. sometimes the really brown areas were more difficult to remove than the less brown. i found the best way to remove it was to immediately put it in water and gently remove the burnt fibres which smelt like crumpets! these procedures were carried out in well ventilated areas.

#5 and voila a devoréd image. this one i use torn strips of paper and my cloud images from before (looks a bit Matissey)

#6 i used a paper cut mask of the image below, using both the positive and negative pieces of paper. i think i got slightly carried away with this method and i am certainly smitten with the effect.

my husband said to me 'what on earth do you want to take a picture of that for?'

#8 i used letter cut outs and paper offcuts for this one. it is also the same as image #4 where i had stitched a zig-zag in the top right creating a wonderful texture, might have to try some more of this

#9 i then added colour to a couple of pieces, the above i had used stitch, paper masks and thread masks to create the images. i wanted to colour in isolated areas so i used Koh i nor dyes and painted them on (not sure how fast they are! but it achieved the effect i wanted.

#10 just adding a bit of colour. i am keen to continue with these perhaps dyeing them and over printing but at the moment i feel i have done enough?!