Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Running Errands: Surface Design Ideas

My errand list

I was running some errands today, picking up some supplies for upcoming surface design workshops. I'm always looking down the aisles of stores and gathering ideas for using products in new ways. Today, I brought my camera along...

At Staples, after making photocopies for my Changing the Face of Fabric Challenge workshop, I wandered down the aisle with the packing supplies.

I needed some bubble wrap...for packing but also for printing.

I spied these green packing products as well. I bet they'd make for some interesting printing effects especially the Greenwrap.

Cardboard boxes are great for portable printing surfaces and for making print blocks.

Tape and glue are always on my surface design list. I'll be using the packing tape, doubled over for stencils.

Later on at Michael's Arts and Crafts, I immediately went to one of my favorite aisles, the one with all the Creatology Fun Foam. I needed to pick up a number of the 1/4"  x 9 x 12 sheets for the weekend workshop. I love this aisle...look at all the choices of adhesive Fun Foam shapes!

As I presently have a student, Keith, who designs and teaches the creation of spectacular cakes (each an amazing art piece); I decided to wander over to the cake decorating aisle.

I was surprised to find foam print blocks for printing designs on cakes!

There were also texture plates and mats for rolling textures onto fondant.

Outside Michael's and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the flip-flops. Heat these up with a heat gun or embossing tool and you can impress textures on them for printing.

A few things I picked up today: Restickable mounting shapes and dots (from Staples) and adhesive felt shapes and FunFusion perle beads (from Michael's).  I plan to stick the mounting shapes onto fabric as masks and pick them up and reposition them. The felt shapes can be applied to cardboard to make print blocks. The FunFusion might be fun to stick under fabric for a brayer rubbing or to press into a heated moldable foam block (or a heated flip-flop) for a texture block.
Oh the possibilities!





2 comments:

  1. I'm happy that I inspired you to explore a new aisle in Michaels! And I can't wait to transfer some of my new fabric surface design skills to the cake world.

    Thanks again for a great class!

    ReplyDelete
  2. And thank you! I really enjoyed having you in class. I'd love to see how you transfer some of what you've learned to the cake world. And I hope to get a photo of your new vest when it's completed.

    ReplyDelete