Adventures in Ice Cube Dyeing

Back on this blogpost I mentioned that I tried ice cube dyeing. It's a super easy why to dye fabric. I equate it to cooking with a crock pot. Put everything in at once and let it cook.

Being that it was my first try at this technique, I wanted to dye a piece of clothing along with fabric to see how each would take to this process. Sometime ago, I brought a T-shirt from Dharma that would be fun to dye.  I decided to use the leftover Dharma's Procion dye in Periwinkle, Blue Violet and Sapphire Blue from my Delphinium project.

First, I soaked the shirt and a piece of cotton fabric in soak ash. After both pieces had dried, I started by layering the fabric in the bucket. Alternating fabric, ice cubes then sprinkling the dye. Then the t-shirt was place on top of the fabric. Again, layering t-shirt, ice cubes then dye.

After the ice cubes had melted, about 24 hours, I rinsed out the t-shirt and fabric then left them to dry. I was pleasantly surprised to see the results once both pieces had dried. The t-shirt had dyed the way I thought the technique should look with good variation of light and dark areas.

front of shirt

back of shirt



 





The fabric dyed a bit darker that the t-shirt due to the difference in the type fabric. I like the results of both items. This is definately a technique that I will try again.

Energy Pathways

It's time for another artwork trade for Serendipity Art Group. The theme for this time around is "Energy Pathways". I decided to try to convey the theme with an abstract design. My piece is called "Energized".

 

 

I used Pebeo Setacolor Fabric paint in Lemon Yellow (Opaque), Vermillion and Cobalt Blue (both Transparent). First, I painted a whole cloth ombre using all 3 colors. Once it dried then I dried brush the colors on top for more texture. I cut the fabric into vertical strips. Laying them back down slightly alternating. I sewed the pieces together, added batting and back fabric.   

Artistic Expressions - Delphinium Field

Last Saturday was the meeting for Artistic Expressions group. We are all working on artwork for an exhibit called Delphinium Field. Each piece will be the same size of 18' x 28" with a stripe border incorporating all the colors in our piece. Our amazing leader, Deborah Stanley, confirmed that this exhibit will tour in 7 Mancuso shows across the US from May 2013 through February 2014. Very exciting!

Here is a photo of the members taken at our last meeting. I'm behind the camera taking the photo.


Front row - Teresa Shippy, Linda Friedman, Deborah Stanley
Back row -  Laura Bisagna, Eileen Wintemute, Mary Beth Kile, Cynthia Catlin

I'm going to challenge myself not to incorporate my favorite color, green, in my piece. The flower is going to be mainly blue and purple. I thought it would be interesting to have the layout of one single delphinium in close up and off center - 3/4 view.

Delphinium layout

The fun part of any piece for me is dyeing the fabric. I used Dharma Procion dye in Periwinkle, Blue Violet and Sapphire Blue. Each dye bath consisted of 3 gallons of water, 1 cup salt, 1/3 cup of soda ash and 1/2 tablespoon of dye. The fabric was presoaked in soda ash.

Linda Friedman brought her beautiful completed artwork, "Flora Lure" to show. You can check out this artwork on this blogpost.

Other members brought their work in progress artwork for this exhibit. I was really inspired by Laura Bisagna's fabric, which was dyed using the ice cube technique. It's a technique that I wanted to try since reading Carol Ludington's article in the June/July 2012 Quilting Arts magazine. I gave this technique a try and rinsed out the fabric this morning. I will blog about my experience once the fabric has dried. To be continued...

Update From My Studio

This is a long overdue update from my studio. I've been working on multiple projects at once. Here are a few works in progress that I'm having a blast making.

The first work in progress piece is made from tin tile and monoprint fabrics that I posted about here and here. The top is done and now I need to figure out how to finish it.




The other work in progress piece for the Peel Away The Layers series. This series is made with used tea bag paper. The other pieces in this series have been dark. I thought it would be fun to use brighter colored fabrics.  



Now back to the studio...

Breast Pocket #2

I made another Breast Pocket to send to Melanie Testa. It's in honor of my mom's friend, Diane. They volunteer together at their local library's used book store.

Breast Pocket for Diane

Breast Pockets

Recently, a incredible artist, Melanie Testa, posted about a call for breast pockets on her blog. Check out the post here. She is a breast cancer survivor and a proud flattie. Her goal is to collect 1,000 pockets. I jumped at the chance to participate. I hope that you will join in, too!

The breast pocket I made is for my mom, Sally, who is a 10 year breast cancer survivor. She is 85 years old and going strong. When I told her of this project, she requested her pocket to be red and glittery. I sewed red sequins on top of the pink pocket.

Breast Pocket for my mom, Sally.



Prayer Flag

Back in July the The Prayer Flag blog posted a call for entry to submit prayer flags for an exhibit at Oceanside Museum of Art. This exhibit is in conjunction with Quilt National. True to form, I waited until the last minute to make and send my Prayer Flag off to OMA. I have my fingers crossed that it will arrive before the deadline. 

Peace of Mind by Mia Bloom

Update: Awhile back I mentioned that I was offering to teach a class on fabric dyeing and marking for the fall session at the Community Center of La Canada-Flintridge. There wasn't enough sign ups for the class so, it was cancelled for this session. The good news is that the Executive Director wants to keep the class on the schedule for future sessions. I'm happy about that. To be continued...

More Monoprinting

For those of you who have tried monoprinting, you can agree it's addicting. It's a fast technique. I printed 2 more on white Kona cotton which was pretreated with soda ash.

Monoprinting on Commercial Fabric

I was organizing my fabric into storage boxes recently and found this commercial fabric. Not sure why I bought it. Definitely not my style so, I decided to monoprint on top of it.  I will share this technique in the class I'm teaching at Community Center of La Canada-Flintridge.

The first step was to monoprint orange fabric paint on top of the commercial fabric.



It wasn't interesting enough for me. So, I monoprinted on top using brown fabric paint. 



This piece is hanging on my design wall for now. Not sure if I want to leave it alone or continue marking it. To be continued...

Tin Tile Dying Workshop with Teresa Shippy

The other day I got together with some wonderful artist friends at Teresa Shippy's house for her Tin Tile Dying Workshop. What a blast! If you every have artist block, take a technique workshop. It will get your creative juices flowing.

Here are photos of the fabric I made. To learn Teresa's technique, I encourage you to take her class. She is a supportive and generous teacher.

 

 

Close up of the fabric above.



Photo Friday

During the week, I drive by this unique bus bench. I was able to snap a pretty good photo while stopped at a traffic light.

Here is the artwork inspired by this bus bench.

This design was painted using a freezer paper stencil on hand dyed grey fabric. It's one of the techniques I will be sharing in the class I'm teaching at Community Center of La Canada-Flintridge.

Album Art

The theme for this weekend turned out to be album art.

Saturday, my guy and I went to the Annenberg Space For Photography and saw the "Who Shot Rock and Roll" exhibit. It felt nostalgic to see the old album covers hanging at the entrance to the exhibit. The main part of the exhibit is the candid photographs of rock and roll artists starting from the 1960s to present. Also, there is a 30 minute documentary that interviewed some of the photographers whose work was displayed in the exhibit. I highly recommend this exhibit if you're in the Los Angeles area.

The other part of this album art weekend was inspired by Jenny Cochran Lee's blog, texterial and her August 20th blogpost about using old album covers for notebooks. It was so inspiring to me. I had fun browsing through the old albums at a local thrift store.

This weekend I made 5 album cover notebooks. I don't have a binding machine so, I used colored binding rings. The edges were finished using colored duct tape. The notebooks are a mixed of funny and cool album artwork. Please excuse the poor quality photos. For some reason I couldn't get the lighting quite right. 



Close up showing the self-adhesive rhinestones that I added.



I'm teaching!

Well, I finally did it.....I'm dipping my foot into the teaching pond. For a few years I played around with the idea of teaching a class but the right opportunity hadn’t presented itself until now.

When I heard that the Executive Director at the Community Center of La Canada-Flintridge  was looking for new teachers/classes, I jumped at the chance to present my class proposal. She liked my idea of a 6 part class teaching various surface design techniques on fabric. Starting with dyeing and painting fabric to simple monoprinting and screen printing to making stamps and stencils. The catalogues are mailing out and the class schedule is on the website.

Photo Friday

The subject for Photo Friday is the "Community" sculputure in front of the Burbank Water and Power building. 

Here is my artwork inspired by this sculpture.



Long Beach Museum of Art

Yesterday, I went to the Surface Art Association meeting at the Long Beach Museum of Art. It was so nice to get out of the heat of the valley and see incredible art.

After a short SAA meeting, Sue Ann Robinson (the museum's Director of Collections) showed us the exhibits. First was the Small Expressions 2012 exhibit that was part of the Handweavers Guild of America's Convergence 2012 Convention. We were allowed to take pictures of this exhibit. Here are three works that were made an impression on me.

This first piece is called Hydrangea by artist Lisa Hart. It's made with real Hydrangea petals.



This woven piece is called Dialogue II by artist Marcia Weiss. She used cotton and linen thread to weave this intricate design.

Artist Jenine Shereos piece is called Leaves. She used human hair to make this delicate leaves.

On the same floor as the Small Expressions exhibit is the permanent collections which included California Modernism and Contemporary Art of California. Amazing pieces.

The other current exhibit is called Buena Vista: California Painters in Mexico. Another inspiring exhibit. If you are in the Long Beach area, I highly recommend visiting the Long Beach Museum of Art.