Experiment: Making Clay Texture Blocks

Yesterday, as the remnants of Sandy left us with leaves and branches on the ground and a drizzly rain, I decided to take advantage of a day inside and electricity.

A former student and subscriber to my newsletter sent me an email. She was really excited about the last issue (Issue #6). As a polymer clay artist, she is often embossing clay for printing. She hadn't thought of kidney beans and loved the results I was getting with the embossable foam blocks.

This gave me an idea. I am in the process of writing my book proposal. As my proposed book revolves around using materials from the kitchen for surface design, I wasn't sure if I would include using the commercial moldable foam blocks for embossing. So an internet search began for creating clay using kitchen ingredients. I was fortunate to find a number of recipes.

One recipe for Baker's Clay combined flour, salt and water.
First mix together the salt and flour.

Then add the water.

Stir then knead together until it is dough (clay).

After rolling out the Baker's Clay, I embossed it with my texture blocks.

Here I pushed one of my texture blocks into the rolled-out clay.

The embossed clay on the left. The texture block with almonds on the right.

 Then into the oven for baking.

A number of different textures embossed into the Baker's Clay.

 They puffed up a bit. I will probably try a second batch with slight modifications.

Today I decided to print with them. First, I used a foam brayer and then a foam dauber (I describe how to make one in Issue #4 of Julie Booth Surface Design News).

I was surprised...the results were pretty good.

I'll have to explore this a bit more.

More Birds: Embossed Craft Foam Block

As promised...the craft foam bird block.

The original design was based on one of Katherine's Mexican embroideries. I made a tracing.

I transferred the design to a sheet of adhesive craft foam using a soft rubber brayer.

I then cut the individual pieces out using a pair of small sharp scissors and an X-acto knife.

After pulling the paper backing off the adhesive craft foam, I arranged the pieces on a piece of thicker craft foam.

To mimic the texture of the embroidery stitches, I used a ballpoint pen to emboss the craft foam.

I mixed up some colors using Opaque Pebeo Setacolor fabric paint and rolled them out with my foam Rollrite brayer.

Printing some birds: the background of this piece was a wipe up cloth.

On this piece, I also used a wipe up cloth and overprinted with a hot glue block before using the bird design.

This last design also combines the hot glue block with the bird block.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Savannah to visit my folks.
The blog will continue. I'm looking forward to seeing what surface design inspirations Savannah has to offer.

For the Birds: More Latin American Designs

Just a small flock of fabrics before I head off to work...

These were printed with two carved Speedball Speedy Stamp (Carve) blocks. The design was based on a motif from an ancient Peruvian weaving.

This piece was created with a block made from adhesive craft foam that I embossed with a ballpoint pen. I used one of Katherine's Mexican embroideries as inspiration. I'll have a step-by-step about this block design sometime in the next few days.

Off to sell beads!

Craft Foam Print Block: Embossing Craft Foam with a Pen

As I mentioned in the Monday, March 26 post, sometimes you when you are trying too hard to make something work, you happen upon a different, possibly even better way to resolve things. So, it was over the weekend when I discovered a way to create a mola design using craft foam.

I was inspired by this small, simple fish mola design.

After reducing the image to 4" x 6", I made a tracing.

I flipped the tracing over onto a 6" x 9" sheet of adhesive craft foam and used a soft rubber brayer (roller) to transfer the design.

If you don't have a brayer, you can use the back of a spoon to transfer the design.

I did a few tracings as I wanted to try some different techniques. Since the adhesive craft foam sheets are very thin, it's easiest to peel off the paper backing and adhere them to a thicker foam sheet.

Once your design is adhered to the thicker foam, cut the foam to size. You are now ready to emboss the block. Use a ballpoint pen and press down hard as you draw around the outline of a shape. Continue to fill in the shape, pressing down hard to compress the foam.

This is what the block looks like after it's been embossed. Now it's time to print.

I use Opaque Pebeo Setacolor fabric paints and a Rollrite foam brayer. Roll the paint out on a piece of glass until the brayer is evenly coated with the paint. Roll an even coating of paint onto the block. Turn the block over onto your fabric and press down. It's best to print on a padded surface.

I printed some samples of the fish mola design for my Latin American Influences: Textile Inspirations class. I used painted backgrounds and first printed with a pattern block before printing with the embossed craft foam fish block. Tomorrow I'll have some samples using a freezer paper stencil I created using the same fish mola design.