Extraordinary Prints from Ordinary Objects - G

G is for Golf Ball!

After an all too brief visit to wonderful, sunny and WARM Aruba, 

I am back in wintry Toronto with G - for golf ball.

- Paint your fabric with a couple of layers of pigment and,

while it is still wet, roll, drag or press the golf ball into it.

Colour Vie Pigments are ideal for this. www.colourvie.com

Easy and fun, the golf ball gives you snakeskin like effects.

I scrunched up the fabric and painted it with green before
rolling a golf ball over it. Metallic golf ball prints added last.

Oops - I couldn't stay away from the credit card! (After I did
an overall golf ball print). Single gold metallic ball prints
were added after the fabric had dried.

A selection of African inspired golf ball prints.

Student work

And to end: a sunset view form The Beach House in Aruba. 

Extraordinary Prints from Ordinary Objects - F

F is for Flour!

Flour is something that we usually keep around in the kitchen.

Why not use it to create fabric as well as for baking cookies!

- Mix the flour approx. 50/50 with water. 

- Mix until smooth

- Spread the flour mixture onto the fabric.

- Let dry completely - it will get quite hard.

- When the fabric is crispy: Scrunch it - the more violent you are, 

  the more crinkly lines you will get.

Flour is dried on the fabric and ready for crackling.

- Paint with pigments. Really work the colour into the cracks.

While the flour is wet, you can make patterns.
Here I used different sizes of forks.

Finished "Fork" fabric

- If you want more colours, let the flour/pigment dry and scrunch some more.

- After the fabric is dry, rub off the flour - not a quick process,

but quite relaxing and fun!

Flour and pigment are dry and partially scraped off.

More fork patterns.

Colour Vie pigments, www.colourvie.com, like most fabric pigments, 

need to be heat set with an iron in order to be wash fast. 

Make sure that all flour is removed from the fabric before heat setting.

If it is not removed, the flour has a tendency to become a permanent fixture 

in your design.....

Now here’s the really cool thing: Colour Vie pigments will actually heat set 

without ironing over a period of time.

So, if you’re not in a rush, you can simply let the fabric sit for 2 - 4 weeks, 

and then rinse off the flour in luke warm water.

 You may want to check out this great blog that uses flour in a different way.

http://eyesaflame.blogspot.ca/2008/06/demo-flour-paste-batik.html

Extraordinary Prints form Ordinary Objects - E

E is for Eraser!

Excellent fabric pigments are available at www.colourvie.com

Want to create your own stamps?

In printing the alphabet we are already at E!

One of the easiest ways to make your own stamps:
Cut your design from a cheap white eraser.

- Carve out your design with an x-acto knife.

- Make a simple stamp pad out of a piece of foam.

- Spread the pigment on the stamp pad.
- Print away - and have fun!

On this piece I painted the fabric with Colour Vie pigments.
While the pigment was still wet, I used the eraser stamps
to remove pigment colour.

Here I painted the background colour, then printed with
the different eraser stamps.

For this napkin and placemat I used the eraser end of a pencil.

Student work: by Linda Wells.