Showing posts with label Changing the Face of Fabric workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Changing the Face of Fabric workshop. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Color Change

Test strip of color washes over flower fabric.

 This week begins a busy month of teaching. The Summer Session at The Art League School starts and my four session class, Exploring Surface Design a la Carte, is a go. I'm also teaching two mornings at The Art League School's Fiber Camp. Both start this week.

It's become a tradition for me to teach my Wrapped Wire Animals at Fiber Camp. It's a project near and dear to my heart and one that will eventually become a book (or that is my hope). I've posted about it before and you can see some animals from last year's camp here.

A couple of wrapped tigers.

As with most art programs these days, there is a strong incentive to save on costs...especially the cost of supplies. In the past, I've purchased fabrics from G Street Fabrics. In an effort to save, last year I was handed a box with assorted cotton fabrics. Fortunately for me, there were some solid colors among the patterned fabrics. Also fortunate, most of the solids weren't too dark, but pastels. This gave me the opportunity to paint washes of colors over the pastels and to do some knotted and bound resist techniques. As a result, I was able to provide a more interesting color selection to the campers.

This year, I was at it again... pulling fabrics from the box and seeing what possibilities there were to change the look of the fabrics.


I came upon a flower print.

I decided to do a bit of over-painting. And this is the result.

Original fabric on left.

I can see that there are certainly more possibilities. I did a little test strip this morning with some other colors.


These fabrics are destined to be cut up into strips for the Fiber Camp project. However, I also teach this over-painting technique in a class called, Changing the Face of Fabric. Of course, painting over a fabric to change it is just one of so many things you can do to make a blah fabric become an interesting one.

Now I'm off to cut up these new fabrics for Camp!



Saturday, June 9, 2012

Changing the Face of Fabric Sampler


Gene Greer

I had three enthusiastic students today.
Painted commercial fabrics drying

They painted fabrics...
Claudia W.
Gene Greer

Created blocks...
Gene Greer
Made brayer rubbings...
Susan Greer

Learned about masks and stencils...
Susan Greer
Claudia W.

Had a good time...
Gene Greer

Thanks for a fun day!

Gone Teachin': Changing the Face of Fabric

Original fabric was very pale blue with white stripes! by Julie B Booth

Off teaching today...Changing the Face of Fabric...we will be taking commercial fabrics and painting, printing and stenciling them to create something entirely new. Can't wait to see what my students design!

Original fabric was white with gold stars! by Julie B Booth


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!