Sunday, June 3, 2012

What If-ing Weeds

Experimenting with printing weeds
 Having been inspired by my Skype session with Pam and Jennifer, I decided to do a bit of what if-ing with the weeds in my garden.

My exhibiting group, F.I.N.E., has an exhibition planned for next year called, All Over the Map. I decided to focus on ways of mapping the weeds in my garden. So far, I have two finished hangings based on my drawings of Wood Sorrel. I've been trying to figure out some other ways of working with weeds.

The what if-ing began with gathering some weeds. My garden is overrun with a weed that is as sticky as Velcro! Another weed had large broad leaves.

I first decided to put the weeds under cotton fabric and roll over them (a brayer rubbing) with Opaque Pebeo Setacolor Fabric Paint.

I noticed that the weeds left a design on the paint on the foam brayer and if I rolled it out on another piece of fabric, I could get soft impressions of the designs.

I then tried some direct printing. I rolled opaque paint out on the glass palette and placed the weeds on the paint. I then applied more paint to the other side of the weed/leaf. I sandwiched the weeds between two pieces of cotton fabric and pressed down so the fabric paint would release onto both pieces of fabric.

This worked especially well with the large leaves.

In addition to working with the opaque fabric paint, I also did some techniques using diluted Transparent Pebeo Setacolor Fabric Paint. I'll show you the results of those experiments tomorrow.


5 comments:

  1. You might make me love weeds!! Rolling over them with your brayer really does create magic.....beautiful impressions of weeds AND they also look a bit like maps. Love your play.

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    1. Thanks, Pam. You and Jennifer inspired me to get out of my box and just play.

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  2. I'm drooling up here! May I admit to being a bit misty eyed too? This is as much a breakthrough post as the last. What fun you had with your weeds!

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    1. Thanks Jennifer. You and Pam were an inspiration. I have plans to take the printing gear and a large piece (or pieces) of fabric outside with a drop cloth and just roll my brayer over weeds!

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  3. Hi Tammy- So glad you like my experiments. I have to wait for "weed season" to arrive again. I've been keeping myself busy in the meantime. I'd enjoy seeing some of your work. Thanks for including my name in your project.

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