Thursday, July 09, 2009

Play day

Today our small art quilt group STASH (Second Thursday At Somebody's House) met. We decided to have several play/learn days this year and this was our first. We made sun prints on fabric.

Ray helped me set up our big canopy in the backyard so we could work out there and have some shade to work in. As it turned out the morning was pretty overcast. The process, in a nutshell, is to use fabric paint or acrylic paint, quite wet, on fabric, to lay down a background color. Then we put the wet fabric on a sheet of newspaper on the grass, and placed objects with interesting shapes on the wet, painted fabric. As the fabric dries, the uncovered part dries faster and wicks the paint out from under the covered areas, creating silhouettes on the fabric.

We spent the morning painting and "decorating" our fabric, then broke for lunch while the fabrics dried. I put together ingredients for a big salad and the rest of the group brought goodies to add to the salad. It tasted great and we enjoyed catching up on everyone's summer activities.

After lunch we cleared the stuff off our dried fabrics and admired the prints. Not everything turned out great, of course. If we had had more sun they would have dried faster and probably made crisper prints. We learned that very flat objects make the best prints and everything dries lighter than you think it will be. We got some great results, though. Reva's prints made using a bunch of stuff from her husband's stash of metal hardware were very interesting. I was especially happy with some of my fern prints and one I made using little metal stars and a piece of plastic needlepoint canvas. We admired and analyzed, and had a great time. The challenge, now, is to use the fabric we painted today.

16 comments:

  1. Ah, looks like such fun - I envy you that backyard and that group! But yes, the REAL challenge is using the printed fabric. However, I have no doubt that this crew is up to the challenge. I hope you'll post the results!

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  2. Anonymous8:37 PM

    I had so much fun that I am going to try it with real sunshine--maybe tomorrow :-)
    Beth

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  3. Looks like it was a fun day, even without the sunshine.

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  4. What an interesting technique - ready to try it once the sunshine comes back to this part of Scotland - from the forecast, could be a long wait!

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  5. Your blog always inspires me - so well-written.

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  6. Looks like fun! I've had mixed result with sun prints too, and we have LOTS of sun. Jen

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  7. what a fun group you have! love the results

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  8. Pokey Bolton11:34 AM

    I am jealous of your play date! Those fabrics came out beautifully...

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  9. So much fun and lovely fabrics to boot. When I make time to play, I call it a mental health day. I want one of those canopies!!

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  10. What fun!!... color me Jealous!! haha.
    I am going to propose just such a day.. even if I end up playing by myself.
    Thank you for the inspiration.

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  11. One of my favorite techniques! Glad to see you had so much fun with it.

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  12. What a great setup - down here (FL) we'd be eaten by mosquitoes.

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  13. Hi Terry,
    When you paint with the acrylics, do you water them down? Or are they used straight from the jar/bottle whatever?
    Thanks,
    Sandy in the UK

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  14. Sounds like fun. Maybe I should start and east coast STASH. Everyone loves my new Joseph bird!

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  15. I think the best part about adding paint to fabric is not knowing just what it will turn out like. We haven't had many non rainy days here this summer to play myself....

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  16. The pictures are great and convey the mood. Thanks for writing about it. Ruthie

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