Monday, 20 May 2013

Lots of gorgeous colours....

There's not much to say about the following photos except to say how vibrant the colours are! 

Carol's silk fabric and fibres

Gill's  Silk Fibres 


Gill's silk sarong

Jenny's silk caps


Jenny's silk fibres

Jenny's silk scarf

Jenny's silk hankies



Jill's fibres


Yvonne's silk fibres

Yvonne's silk hankies

Yvonne's silk ribbon, throwster waste and silk rods

Yvonne's silk scarf lengths

These are the  results of the group's recent play-day, spent dyeing silk fabrics and fibres.  Some of these fibres will be used in the next session we have on May 29, when we will be making silk paper.  I can't wait to see the results.

Sunday, 12 May 2013

ooohhhh day........

The latest play-day for the Diversity girls turned out bright not just because the sun was shining.  Several colourful pieces of silk fabric and silk fibres were produced as the girls got down to their first attempts at silk dyeing and some of these fibres will be used in a session in  couple of weeks time when the group learn how to make silk paper.
Most of the girls got started by opening their bags of fibres or silk kits just received from an order from Wingham Wools, and some bought lengths of silk fabric from Ann who was happy to reduce her large stash.  Jenny then introduced us to several different types of dyes for silk fibres and fabrics and ran through general instructions on various methods of applying the dyes and then setting  the colour using  microwaves.
 Jenny giving instructions while members took notes



 These soaked fibres are ready in bowls and plastic film waiting for colour to be added by Gill, who sprinkled dye powder over them randomly

Gwen's first dyed fibres ready to be dried then used for silk paper making

Jill adding a sprinkling of colour to soaked silk fibres

Gill's soaked fabric ready for steaming in the microwave.

There were lots of  oohhs and aahhs when the fabrics were unwrapped from their plastic- film steam baths, 

Yvonne's first piece of  dyed silk fabric 

Maureen with her dyed silk scarf

Cath pleased with her first result

Gwen's dyed fabric

More of Yvonne's dyed fabrics

Carol's dyed fabric

everyone tried dyeing silk fibres but it was quite difficult to photograph them, above Jenny's
              and below Jill's

These two striking designs (above and below) are Carol's fabrics


Gwen pleased with her dyed silk square

The girls plan on meeting next week to have a show and tell when all the fabrics and fibres will look quite different after drying and the fabrics are pressed.  Hope to see you then.


Monday, 15 April 2013

Welcome to our newest member Cath!

Although all our regular members were not here, we welcomed Cath to our latest "playday", and worked on various projects and techniques.
Cath and Gwen, who wasn't with us to try out transfer paints, dyes and crayons in our previous session, spent their day painting up papers and ironing out some of their results.  Cath who has spent some time agonising over whether to take the plunge and join the Group, really enjoyed herself, and wonders why she didn't join before!

Cath thrilled with her first attempt at transfer printing

Cath's printed fabric left and the painted paper right

More transfer-dye painted papers drying out

Gwen also chose to use transfer dyes to produce many papers ready for printing at home

Gwen transfer painting

and trying out transfer crayons and rubbing mats

Gill decided to spend her time trying out different fabric dyeing techniques and began by wrapping fabric around a pole and experimenting with fruits and vegetables as resists, with mixed results.  Although her pieces didn't turn out as expected Gill says she learned valuable lessons from the exercise. 


Jenny worked on samples for her Lucky dip project

Jenny used transfer dyes and a mask to create a print

and Yvonne made samples using a technique using shaving foam and paint to create marbling prints

preparing the shaving foam and paint tray

some of Yvonne's resulting prints

Carol spent time drawing

while Ann sought advice from Jenny about the sample vessel she is creating for her Lucky-Dip project.  Ann's subject is "Reflections".



A paper mock-up of Ann's vessel


and Jill worked on her Lucky Dip project

The group decided on dates for the next two "playdays".  Two are planned in May, as several members are away in June.  The first of which is set for May 8.   Look forward to seeing you then. 













Saturday, 9 March 2013

Success at home....

After the disappointment of poor transfer results in the hall during our recent "play-day", we have since each spent a considerable number of hours at home transferring our paper prints to fabrics with great results.
We then had a show and tell in our last meeting, and a couple of us have already used the resulting fabrics in projects.  There are far too many to show here, so the following photos are a selection from each participating member.

Yvonne began by showing her results, along with the project she had made using one of the transfers.  Yvonne further embellished the freezer paper stencilled flowers with paint and stitch before using the flower motif again, as a quilting design on the background.

More of Yvonne's samples above and below using resists to give attractive backgrounds

Next was Jenny's turn to talk about her processes and samples

Jenny cut out hearts from painted papers and used these as a resist to transfer the colours of the hearts as well as more papers for the background transfer, giving a lovely delicate panel of fabric.
Jenny who has used this technique before, went on to demonstrate other ways resists can be used used, with leaves and feathers.


Jill then discussed how she used leaves as resists
and added further paint to the transferred print

Jill also used transfer dyes in a mono-print technique

Helen explored transfer crayons, pens and markers and showed her results expressing that this was the first time she had encountered this technique so her test drawings were quite simple in design, but she was pleased with the transferred results.
Transfer pens

Transfer markers
Helen also tested out transfer paints in a mono-print technique.

Next was Gill, this also being her first introduction to this medium


This sample from Gill had salt sprinkled onto wet dye coloured paper, with the resulting transfer print onto cotton/poly fabric

Although Carol is an artist using regular colouring techniques, this was also her first introduction to using  transfer paints, dyes and crayons.
Carol's sample using the transfer dyes and a foam stamp above, and below making marks using transfer paints

Carol spent some time exploring the use of  transfer crayons on paper over a rubbing mat.  She found that quite vigorous rubbing with a generous application of the crayon gave best results.

I had experimented with transfer paints some time ago and being disappointed with the colours in my resulting transfers, was looking forward to trying out different techniques and also to using the transfer dyes.
This sample shows transfer paints on plotter film, the markings made by laying and scrumpling cling film on the surface while wet, with the resulting print alongside.
This sample used up the dregs of transfer paint from my palette, sponged onto paper, then transfer printed on to poly/cotton fabric with eucalyptus leaves as a resist.  The leaves are blue because they had picked up paint from a previous transfer paper, and I laid the leaves down with that painted side to the fabric.
The centre panels in this pair of cushions are results from using more eucalyptus leaves as resits with black transfer dye painted on paper and coarse sea-salt sprinkled on while the paper was wet.  I was able to get two transfer prints from one paper.  The leaves were then painted with a wash of grey acrylic paint and heat set.

We all enjoyed our experiments very much and intend exploring this avenue further in another Diversity group session in April, though I know some of us will also be spending time before then making more papers and prints.  We hope you will come back soon  to see those results.
                                                                                                      Rachel