Fabric stamped with washers

I wanted to make some fabric with circle designs, but did not want to use stencils.

I decided to create my own stamps using washers and corks.   I glued the washer to the cork with E6000, so it would be easier to stamp with it. I made two different sizes.

Here is the smaller "stamp". I plan to make one of my hand sculptures out of this one.  I used my gelli plate as a palette to put my paint on and spread it out with a brayer. Then I stamped into the paint, then on the fabric.  I was using a Cotton Twill, and next time I will used a standard cotton, as the texture of the twill weave did affect the stamping.  I was going for a grungy imperfect look so I was happy with the results.  This one was with black and brown paints, although it is more black than brown.

This is the larger washer stamp. It is probably 2" in diameter.  I used red, yellow, a couple blues, and a brown paint to stamp these. This picture shows it laying across and hanging down from my dining table. It's a fairly large piece of fabric and was made for a specific project (still in it's early stages).

 And a close up. You can see the color variations and texture. It looks a bit rough up-close, but I like it that way. And from far away, it is uber-fantastic and exactly what I wanted.

Gelli printing with a crochet lace stamp and handmade stencil

My previous post here  shows how I made some stamps using lace and foam sheets. I used these to gelli print (on this post) and I really liked all the detail from the lace print. I decided to combine one of the lace stamps with a homemade stencil.

I made my stencil using this photo from a magazine.

I enlarged the image on my copier, then printed it on cardstock. I put contact paper on the front and back of the cardstock, then cut out the image (using scissors and an Xacto knife).  (You can see my previous posts on making home made stencils with contact paper here and here.) Here are my positive and negative stencils (I forgot to take a picture of it until after I printed with them).

Here is the lace stamp I am using.

I brayered white paint on my gelli plate and pressed the lace stamp into the wet paint using my hands, then removed the stamp.

I placed my stencil over the plate.

Then I printed it onto a previous magenta gelli print.

I typically could only get one print from this, and I also could not get a good print from removing the stencil and printing the remaining white paint that was underneath it.  In order to get a good print I had to re-apply white paint for each print.  I did quite a few prints, all on previous gelli prints.

For this print, I used red paint for the lace instead of white. I had stamped a hexagon stamp for her upper body and only pressed the lace stamp into the lower half, for her skirt. Then I put the stencil down and printed it.

After removing the stencil, I tried to print the remaining red paint on the plate, and I love this print. This is my favorite. And while I can repeat the hexagon and lace stamping, I have no idea how the gelli print that I printed it on was made. I have a feeling I may have printed the lady on it previously and it looked weak, so I printed on it again.

Here the lace is used for the background instead of the dress.

I didn't use the lace stamp on this one.

I absolutely adore this stencil and love the way it looks with the lace stamp.  I will probably use some pencils or markers to add some detail on these, but I think they look fantastic.

Gelli printing with crochet and lace stamps.

Yesterday I did a post on making stamps with foam sheets and crochet and lace.  This past weekend I did some gelli printing with these.

I previously had tried to stamp with these on canvas, but the details were too fine and the pattern disappeared.  In comparison, the gelli plate worked great and showed the details well.

Here is my stamp on the left and gelli plate with blue paint on the right.

I smushed my stamp into the paint, pressing firmly with my hands. Here is the plate after I removed the stamp.

I printed it over a previous red gelli print. 

I did try to get a second print on a different red gelli print but there was not a lot of paint remaining.

Here is my combination lace stamp and the gelli plate with orange paint.

After smushing the stamp into the plate.

The print. I printed this on a previous green gelli print. I think it would have looked better over a darker color.

Using the swirl crochet stamp, I printed using magenta on a plain sheet of deli paper. Here is the plate.

And the print.

This is a yellow print on a previous red gelli print. The turquoise is leftover paint on the plate from a previous print. I typically do not clean my gelli plate between colors, so I get some nice surprises like this sometimes.

And a couple more prints with the swirl stamp. This one on white deli paper.

Yellow print over a previous fluorescent pink flower print.

Detail.

Yellow print over a previous gelli print (that already had about four layers on it).

The prints I liked best were either darker paints printed on white paper, or light colored paints over darker paper (previous gelli prints).  The contrast allows the lace details to show better.

In my next post I am going to combine using a lace stamp and a handmade stencil for gelli printing.

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.

Stamping on fabric

For a show coming up in the summer, I decided to make some layered fabric collages (similar to what Cas Holmes does), and wanted a coral/underwater theme for some of them.

I cut a coral stamp from sticky back foam and attached it to a metal plate to make stamping easier.

I also wanted to use this wood block I had bought at the Pasedena flea market last month.

Here are my fabrics. Stamping is kind of like fabric dyeing for me.  I start with a couple of pieces of fabric, then just start looking for more and more fabric to use. Clockwise from left is a sheer polyester, the blue and gold sheer with gold trim is from a cute Indian inspired dress my niece outgrew, gold fabric, shibori dyed cotton, Setacolor painted fabric (bottom center) and patterned commercial fabric (center).

I may go and touch up some of the coral with a brush.

Here are the wood cut prints, clockwise from top left, bluish sheer with sequins, commercial print, Indian light blue sheer, hand-dyed fabric, Setacolor painted poly organza (center bottom), blue faux-silk (bottom left), sheer poly, and Setacolor painted cotton/poly blend (center).

Setacolor painted poly-cotton

Light blue sheer with sequins. I stamped on the backside, the front side of the sequins were super glitzy. I don't even know why I own this fabric.

I used Neopaque paints for these.  True Red, and white/turquoise mix (with a touch of Golden Fluid Acrylic in Pthalo Green) I think I need to go make some red prints with the wood block!

Foiling stamped images on fabric

In my last post, I showed some fabrics I had stamped with a skull stamp I had carved. I also used this stamp to stamp foil glue onto some fabrics. I had a hard time finding foiling adhesive at Michael's, I used Plaid glitter and foil adhesive, which was the only one I could find there.

Per the instructions, after waiting 24 hours, I ironed my Mylar foil onto the glue. The results are pretty poor. My feeling is that there was not enough adhesive on the fabric. I will probably try the glue again using a stencil instead, or find another glue.

This is probably the best one. This was a commercial fabric I over-painted and sun-printed on with Setacolor paints.

This was a marbleized fabric. This foiling looks horrible.

This one was on a Tshirt but the foiling looked very patchy.

I used Lumiere bronze paint to paint over the image.

Not super fantastic, but I will definitely wear it.