fiberhart

Dyeing and Sketchbooking

I had so many dye concentrates left over from last weekend, I was not about to let them go to waste. So I got up this morning, grabbed a bunch of pfd, and had at it. I did some monoprinting, and several pots of color parfaits as Ann Johnston has in her book Color by Accident. I used lots of turquoise, so I'm letting them batch overnight with the heat lamps on them.

I also did my last three silk scarves from Dharma, all long skinny ones. Here they are drying, after setting the dyes in the microwave.



I'm going to used black paint with a thermofax on the red one- it's writing, my great-grandmother's graduation essay. I think I will use Shiva paintstiks on the middle on, both metallic red and charcoal. I don't know if I will do anything to the one on the left, haven't decided yet.

Bentlee is here this weekend, so I took the book I got at DI a week ago that I had already glued pages together. We started gessoing the pages so we could paint and print on them- here's Bentlee drying pages. You can see the dyed stuff on the back of the table.



First I let Bentlee draw and paint on one page. She used the underlying image of the bird to help her develop her drawing, then painted it.



Then we did monoprinting with a transparency. I learned that you have no open time with cheap acrylic paints, they dry FAST. So, we worked fast. For me, these were more color studies than anything else- I've got a lot of fabric in the blues and turquoises, and want to start developing a quilt using them. I think this could be fun!



I didn't think it would be possible to use my watercolors on the gesso, but my brother told me about a painting he saw at an exhibit that was exactly that, and he said it was spectacular. He showed me the catalog- it was detailed and crisp, and looked beautifully done. So I will be trying my watercolors, just not with monoprinting. The colors of the acrylics I bought aren't as clear as I like, and I know I'll get better color with the watercolors.

I also got a present in the mail today! Miles told me he like my rust print, so I sent him that and some other fabric goodies, in exchange for a piece of his work. And this is what I got--



I love the colors,and the sensuous lines. I will have to look at it awhile, and probably consult with a friend, before I put this to the needle. The white especially, there's no screwing up there. But I think this will be lovely finished. I also got another goodie from Miles, but I won't reveal that one until Halloween!

More tomorrow, I'll post the results of the dyeing, and hopefully the scarves too. Hope your weekend is a good one!