"Mark Making" Demo - Making your own printed fabric

[rue d'oak]

I have started making my own prints to use in art quilting and related fiber art. In some cases it is a form of printing and stenciling, and in others it is more akin to drawing, using a variety of wonderful products I am lured into buying at art stores.

Creating our own printed fabric offers so many possibilities. It means that a piece is truly your own, rather than using commercially printed fabrics. I have noticed in some publications and websites, that this is a desired attribute for some shows, competitions and collectors. But for me it is simply an extension of the joy of pure creativity.`

Here is a teaser, with more to come over the next couple of days....

[DrDebby]

Can't wait to see what you've been up to.

[rue d'oak]

hee hee hee. Always up to SOMETHING, eh?

[Aral]

Never a dull moment Jen
It's wonderful to make one's own design.

Looking forward .................

[rue d'oak]

Well, Sigrun, you live at the heart of "mark making" and your own fabric design! I am increasingly intrigued with working with fabric I have altered and printed -- just a deeper level of overall design.

[Granola Girl]

Very cool, Jen! My mom & I have been doing more of this sort of thing lately too, printing, batiking, stamping and so on. Very satisfying!

[poochemio]

Too, too clever. So are you mixing the acrylics with some sort of fiber medium to soften the paint or just using straight out of the tube. I have lots of acrylics and lots of fabric, can I play along?

[fyrewerx]

Come on where is the info and how do ya do it ?? Don't tease us anymore.... please spill it !!

[rue d'oak]

So many things can be used for printing.
First is to gather things to use for printing:

- double stick tape or glue, to secure string and yarn, wrapped around the roll. Yarn absorbed more of the paint, especially with the first print pass or two.

- craft foam, one side adhesive. Cut your shapes and just stick it down.

I looked around my studio for other shapes I could use
- small lids to print circles
- the small erasure at the end of a pencil
- buttons, paper clips etc held with double sided tape or better yet, photo mounting tape that is foam and adhesive on both sides. The softness of the foam has give, usually producing a cleaner, clearer print.

Of course erasures, potatoes, block printing materials can also be used for carving and printing.

Paint!
For things that are not going to be worn, that you would want soft, good old acrylic from the art store is all you need. I also use official fabric paint.

To do the placemats as a series, I made a mask frame of heavy paper. I used similar but not exact print placement and layout. It kept the design a bit random but clearly a set. And I didn't then worry about registration.

I let the printing dry before adding the border. And that was just using masking tape and painting by hand.

I've intended to get back to printing, and just have not had the time. The possibilities are endless.

Jen

[poochemio]

Thanks Jen. I got excited about painting shirts a couple of years ago. So I do have actual fabric paints, as well as a large assortment of acrylics, think I might need to play around with you.

[rue d'oak]

I just started a thread related to holiday projects that include these photos, but thought I would add it here, too.

Again, digging out my stamping / print materials was inspired by needing a little gift for my nephews. This time it is dish towels. Decided to try a new technique. And to stay more abstract than make more recognizable images like veggies that one more normally finds on dish towels.



The approach uses foam blocks, flip flops or other items which soften with the use of a heat gun. This comes from Traci Bunker's book. It has many ideas to spark your creativity.





How to do it?

• Heat the foam for about 15 seconds.
• Immediately press the hot foam into whatever items - buttons, safety pins, chain, wire - that you have on hand. Hold for about 10 seconds to impress the image.
• Then press into rolled paint or on to a stamp pad - Voila!

I find that it helps to use items of similar thickness. And you can reuse the foam by heating it again. It just puffs out and you can repress new items. Sometimes I have pressed the reheated block onto a flat surface to fully smooth it out.

There is something about buttons that consistently works!


Jen

[EvaJ]

Jen you now have me thinking about painting on some of the doll dresses. I am going to have to experiment with some of these ideas and see what I can come up with.

Exciting........

[Carole A]

I'm saving this thread as a favorite, as your technique will be very helpful in painting floorcloths. As soon as Holidays are over, I'll be preshrinking cotton canvas and prepping for floorcloths (and doggie/kittie placemats). I've had to do a lot of planning to decide how to preshrink canvas that is nearly 2 yds wide and 2 - 3 yds long. I've decided to get a tension shower curtain rod, soak the canvas in my tub and then hang it over the rod, which can be placed so that the canvas doesn't drip on the floor.

Carole

[rue d'oak]

Wow! You both have great ideas. Eva, some painting on doll clothes could be so charming and unique. And Carole, I have also thought about floorcloths. And you are so right about some of these techniques working so well. Looking forward to seeing what you both do!
Jen

[Carole A]

My library system has your book and I added it to my "list", as I won't have time to do anything until after Christmas. I also found two more that look promising, and this one, Printing By Hand by Lena Corwin, looks like it will be very good.

I'm looking forward to playing with these ideas. I'll be using acrylic paint for floorcloths, but I was thinking about adding some type of print to a roller shade I want to make for my kitchen, so I'll probably want to look into to fabric paint.

Thanks for the nudge.

Carole