Stenciled felt coasters, art experiment

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

Finished coasters!

Over a year ago, I was experimenting with using Decolourant on felted recycled wool sweaters.  It didn't go very well. When I rinsed the fabrics after ironing, I could barely see any difference.  I went to a sewing expo and bought some Catch & Release (a product to remove color, which I believe is designed for wool but says it works on cotton too), and some wool felt that a vendor had for sale. The vendor was Crawford Designs and they make the Catch & Release product. These supplies have been sitting in my box of felt ever since (which I believe was last February).


My glass/metal coasters have been falling apart, so I decided to make some new ones.  I took out my wool felt, Catch & Release, some paint, and a stencil with different leaves on it.

I applied the Catch & Release directly to the felt using a makeup sponge to pounce it through the stencil.  After it had dried, I decided to do another layer of stenciling with paint mixed in to the Catch & Release. (If I do this again, I will do the colored ones first, as it was hard to tell where the clear ones were when I was adding the colored ones).  

After these were dry, I ironed the felt.  The clear Catch & Release did a fabulous job at removing the color.  The ones with the paint mixed in look like they were painted on, not like the original color was removed and replaced. I rinsed them with cool water per the directions.

I do like the way the fabrics turned out. I know the last time I tested the Catch & Release on recycled wool sweaters, it did not really work. This was probably because of the type of dye that is used in the sweaters. The dye in the wool felt I bought worked great with the Catch & Release product.

Just FYI, the Catch & Release product is pretty stinky.  It smells like those bathroom disinfectant sprays that add a floral scent, but the chemical smell is still there too. It smells when you apply it and it smells when you iron it, it just downright smells. And I don't have a great sense of smell so it is pretty potent if I am commenting on it. That said, I will use it again and cope with the smell.

After they were rinsed and dried,  I cut 4" squares from the felt.  I sandwiched some foam material between the layers (to help make the coasters somewhat impervious to liquids), stitched around the edges with a straight stitch a 1/4" from the edge, and did some free motion stitching around the leaves. Now I have some lovely coasters!

 
Here is my free-motion stitching on the front (I could use a bit more practice)

Here is the back side. I like the contrast on the back between the printed leaves and the stitched outlines.

I am glad to have new coasters, but am also excited to have this project finished. I started this before Thanksgiving, and between the holidays, traveling, and home renovation projects, they have been sitting on my sewing table half-finished for over a month. Hurrah, onto the next!

Art Experiment: Make stamps from crochet lace

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

I have a lot of crochet doilies and lace in my stash.  I thought I would try making stamps from some of them.

For most of them, I used kids craft foam with adhesive on one side.

Here is the foam and some of my lace stash.

Here is the first one with four circles.

After peeling off the paper backing and attaching the lace, I cut around the pattern I wanted.  Since there were exposed areas of adhesive showing through the holes, I applied a coat of matte medium over the whole piece.

 A diamond shaped one:

This one I wanted pretty big, so I used a 12" x 16" piece of foam that did not have adhesive on it. I used matte medium to glue it down.

 Then I decided to make one with different laces on it. This picture is before gluing.

 After gluing.

 Tomorrow I will post some gelli prints using these.

Art Experiment: Dy-na-flow and Textile Color on silk

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

I have a trial size set of Dy-na-flow paints and Jacquard Textile Colors paints.  I have heard that Dy-na-flow works great on silk, so -darn- I had to buy some silk. I did not water down the Dy-na-flow, but did water down the textile colors by about 25%.

I put my paints in cups so I could use a brush to apply it to the fabric. I labeled the cups with the paint type and color name.

I decided to try some sun printing because I love it so much.

Here is my fabric (an opaque white silk with silk organza over the top). I wet the fabrics, and painted different colors on top, laid down the stencils (and pinned them so they would not blow away), and set it out in the sun.

This sun print came out beautifully. The colors are very bold, so I may water down the paints if I use them again in the future.

 Here you can see the sheer folded back on the right, and the opaque fabric on the left.

I always love the print I get from this wood bead placemat.

Here is my layout using the Textile Color paints.

The sun print is very soft and not very detailed. This may be because I watered down these paints, or because it was late in the day and the sun wasn't very strong. My gut feeling is that regardless of these things, the Dy-na-flow is definitely the better paint than the Textile color for sun printing.

 Sheer folded back on the right, opaque fabric on the left.  The paint did not seep through to the lower layer as well as it did with the Dy-na-flow.

I also painted (both types of paint) onto silk dupioni and then sprinkled Jacquard Silk Salt on it. I thought the salt marks were too distinctive and the colors didn't blend much.

I had a bit of paint remaining, so I decided to do puddle painting. (I have a separate post on this using Setacolor paints).  This is roughly an 18" x 20" piece of cotton velvet.  I used the Dy-na-flow paints, and there was a lot of black left, which overpowered the other colors. I put down some stencils and plastic leaves for sun printing.

This turned out better than expected since it looked so black before sun printing!

For the Textile paints, I also did puddle painting as well, on silk dupioni.

Detail.

Overall, I thought the Dy-na-flow worked great and was very vibrant.  I definitely would consider using it again, especially on a silk project.  For the Textile Color, I would not use it to sun print, but it may be good for painting specific designs on fabric, or applying it through a stencil or with a stamp?

I do love my Setacolors, and I think the hand of the fabric is the same with Dy-na-flow or Setacolor. The Dy-na-flow colors seem more vibrant to me, but that may be because I was working on silk.  So I may need to try Setacolors on silk as well.  I do feel like the Dy-na-flow and Textile Color definitely need to be heat set.  The paints easily washed off my hands.  The Setacolor paints seem more permanent prior to heat setting.  When I used Setacolor Transparent paints on my foam backer board, it always dries and never transfers to my next project. With these other paints, I feel like I need to hose down my boards to prevent any leftover paint from re-activating the next time I use my boards.

I have had a lot of fun with my recent Art Experiments. My next project will have the salt patterned dupioni as a background layer.  I hope to complete it by next week!

Art Experiment, Pebeo Prisme and jewelry blanks

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

Technically, I just bought this Pebeo product last week, which would not count as using something in my stash, but I did use jewelry blanks, glass squares, and vintage baking tins from my stash so it does qualify for my "art experiment" series.  I used all my jewelry blanks.  I am going to see how the glass squares look before making more.

Here is a picture of my jewelry blanks, my glass squares, and my Pebeo Fantasy Prisme discovery set. I wrapped the edges of the glass with blue painters tape to create a well for the Prisme paint.

I typically dropped three colors in each piece.  The videos on YouTube show them using a pipette to put the Prisme paint into the blanks. I own pipettes but did not want to have to clean them with rubbing alcohol afterwards (Prisme paints are solvent based) or throw them away, so I just used a popsicle stick to dribble it in. I found it best to hold the paint container over the piece I was working on, so the paint wouldn't dribble on my work surface or the jewelry blank's edges.

Watching the effects and colors merge and blend and make this sort of snakeskin or opal look was very interesting. Here are some of my pieces in the process of drying.

I decided to make a larger piece and scrounged around and find this metal "frame". I also found some vintage tins which I already had poked holes in to use for Christmas ornaments years ago (that never got made).  I decided to try adding dripped nail polish in the large piece (the white, and the gold glitter), since they are solvent based as well and I wanted to add another type of texture/color.

Here you can see how the patterns and colors change as they dry.
Wet:

 About an hour

Completely dry.

I thought these four pendants looked kind of sad after drying. The paint shrinks as it dries and this left enough room to add another coat.

After adding another coat, completely dry. The paint is opaque, so it completely covered the first layer.

While I was at it, I thought I'd try this paint on some light switch covers I didn't like.

I put blue tape around the edge to make a well for the paint.  I also taped freezer paper behind the holes in the covers.

I didn't like how the red and purple one turned out, so I put a green/purple coat over it (which matches my funky green wallpaper much better). After they were dry, I did remove any excess paint around the edges with an Xacto knife.

I liked making all of these and they were super easy.  It takes a while for the colors to finish moving around (at least 6 hours is recommended) and 72 hours to dry completely.  I plan to add a clear coat to these so they will be convex instead of concave. I may try Diamond Glaze for this, so I don't have to mix any resin. Now I have some nice stocking stuffers for Christmas (and artsy light switch covers).

Art Experiment, Liquitex Pourable medium combined with paint and poured on canvas

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

After using some Liquitex Pourable medium as a top coat last week, I went on YouTube to see videos where artists were using it mixed with paint and poured on canvas. YouTube is a dangerous place and it really made me want to try this technique, which means I needed another bottle of this medium, since the 1/2 bottle I had remaining was not going to be enough.

My first experiment I did in the backside of a wood panel. I painted the interior white and the edges black.  I added a bit of paint in different squirt bottles, a mix of about 90% medium to 10% paint, but I just eye-balled it (I did not measure anything).

I poured in a few puddles of color, then tilted and turned the piece to have the colors move. This is what it first looked like.  As the colors continued to move, it looked almost all orange.

 After it dried for a day, I added a second coat. Here are my puddles before tilting.

I used quite a bit of clear medium, I was hoping for the first layer to show through in a lot of places but as you can see in the next picture that did not happen. I'm a little sad since it did look better with only the first coat.

The next day I moved outside to work with pouring the medium over the canvas.  I put some rods across my work table, then a plastic painting drop cloth.  The medium pulls off of plastic pretty easily, but adding the rods helps so the medium doesn't puddle around the canvases.

I did use a lot of clear medium (without paint) on a lot of these pieces. I put puddles on the canvas, then lifted it and tilted it so the paint would run.

I added some drips. I should have waited a bit to do this as they ran a lot after I took this photo. Also, my plastic drop cloth blew over this piece and it pulled off some of the dried medium, and basically ruined it.

Blues and black, and clear

Lots of colors and clear

After making quite a few canvases, I had a lot of colored medium on my table. It looked interesting so I smushed some canvases into it to pick up the colored medium. I really enjoyed doing it and the results were interesting. By the way, I made a mess during this whole process. Not only on my table, but on myself and my clothes. It can probably be done inside if you are careful, but I enjoy not having to worry about it so I just work outside instead.  I think I would probably wear disposable gloves though.  This stuff was sticky, and it was like peeling dried Elmer's glue off your hands.

The big one is a poured piece. I think it looks very interesting. The small one in the left corner is one I smushed into the paint on the table, then I tilted it so it ran down the piece.

Here are some pictures of the final pieces.

Using the pouring method:

Smushing into the leftover paint/medium on the table:

Closeup.

I like them all. I really enjoyed smushing pieces in the paint puddle and seeing how they would turn out.  I also like the broad areas of color on the poured pieces. I am thinking of using the 6" x 6" square ones, which are a little boring, as backgrounds for a fabric collages.