Friday, September 23, 2016

Experiments in Fabric Embellishment

Wednesday an early birthday present arrived in an Amazon box. I love getting presents. Inside were two presents from my wish list.  For now, let's focus on the artistic choice - Lumiere fabric paints.
It was a set of 7 paints and an extender. (I will have to read up on how and why to use the extender.)  But Thursday, I tested some of the paints.  I got some fabric and ironed it onto some freezer paper.  This does two things: 1. stabilizes the fabric 2. protects the work surface.  So you get a two for one use of the freezer paper.
As you can see, I left overlap for surface protection in case I got close to the edge.    Then I gather the other supplies.  Two palette knives from my painting supplies along with a styrofoam plate to use as a throwaway palette.  (When those are gone, I will start using a permanent palette that I have in the art supplies.)
 And my hand carved rubber stamps - well some of them.
This was all inspired by a blog hop about a book by Deborah Boschert.  She does art quilts that are a lot like abstract collage -  there is also some more realistic stuff in there, but I love the abstract art stuff.  On one of the blog hop stops, the question asked to readers was "Do you have any personal symbols and what are they?"  My spur of the moment thought was "the cross in a circle" and a bare tree.  When I pulled out this stamp box, I realized there is one more: A hand with an extra finger. When I was carving the stamp my subconscious added the extra finger - so I left it there.
Here they are:
I played with just the gold and green paint and here is my embellished fabric.
When it has dried, I will need to heat set it to make it permanent.  This would probably have been more artistic on a plain or mottled fabric rather than over the print, but it was only for play when I started. Before anyone asks, I don't know what I will do with the fabric, but I will keep it for a while and see if it speaks to me artistically and suggests a use.

Meanwhile,  I want to tell you also that starting today Craftsy is having a class sale. Many classes are under $20.  See the infographic from Craftsy below.



Sale Thumbnail
Offer
Most classes under $20

Dates
Friday 9/23
-through-
Sunday 9/25 @11:59PM MT
Select classes are not eligible, including those from The Great Courses®. 
Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible unless otherwise stated. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in posts may be affiliate links for which I am compensated if you click through and purchase.

5 comments:

Debbie said...

Lots of fun going on. The extender acts as a thinner to allow you to better blend the paints, or to make the paints more translucent (thinner and see through). Your stamps are great.

kathyinozarks said...

Fun!! and I love your handmade stamps have not tried that yet-I started a new blog just for my crafts-and I also started a link event Creativity Wednesdays on that blog-you are most welcome to stop by and share a post like this-links in my main blog right column
Kathy

Jeanna said...

You are going to have our own line of fabric soon. Your test turned out beautifully.

Your stamps are great, very unique.

Barbara said...

Very cool! I can also see it on plain fabric.

Marlene said...

I took a class on textile embellishment in college and one of the units was stamping with hand carved stamps such as yours. The instructor had special lightly padded tables covered snuggly in muslin. The fabrics we were creating were nice enough, but my favourite was the muslin underneath with it's bleed through of multiple layers of colours and the various stamp shapes we all used. It was like a diary of all that we had done. I SO wanted to buy that muslin from the teacher and then create a long, loose, button up shirt for myself. I could even envision the addition of embroidery and beading as embellishment. But alas, it never came to be. She wouldn't sell it to me, saying that it would be too much work to stretch and staple the table coverings again. :-(