Linda McLaughlin: Notes from Studio B

Monday, March 9, 2015

Soy Wax Play day

We had our first play day of the year on Friday, a sunny warm day. I did get some pictures of work in progress, but none of the finished pieces.

Trische watching Kathleen stamp wax on with a sponge.

Barbaras pieces with wax waiting to be discharged.

Trische contemplating, she has one with paint on it and she' deciding what to do next with them.

One of Kathleen's pieces with wax, I think she was going to discharge part and over dye.

A piece of Sue's with dye over the wax.

Barbara and Kathleen discharging outside

We had a great day and it was so much fun catching up after our winter hiatus.

The Weekly Leaf

This week I did my leaf with flour paste resist. I've worked with flour paste as a resist many times in the past, but it was always with at least a yard or two of fabric, so doing six inch squares was a bit different. The paste mixture is approximately half water half flour, and it is spread over the fabric with a squeegee. I did four pieces, each a bit different.

The top one has the fabric completely covered with the paste and I've drawn a leaf into the paste with a wooden skewer. The bottom three were done with a leaf shape cut out of a piece of freezer paper, the freezer paper ironed onto the fabric and then the paste scraped into the leaf shape opening and then the veins added with the wooden skewer. The flour paste dries and when manipulated develops cracks.

I applied textile paint to all but the one on rust colored fabric. When applying the paint I try to push it into the cracks. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture with the paint on it. The rust colored sample got comet cleanser with bleach brushed on it for discharge. I'm using the one that got completely covered with paste, but the others are in the pile for possible future use.

Weekly Leaf #10,year2

Daily stitching updates

Silk Fragments #62-#68

The Daily Paper #355-#361 , only 4 more to go!!!

Black and white round gelli prints. I decided to do both black and white, so I'm doing two a day. So far I'm a bit underwhelmed with them, but I'm liking them more each day.

Here's all nine days stuck up on the design wall.

The last six days worth.

I'm using Versatex Printing Ink to do them. Each pair will be textured with the same tools but they aren't exactly the same. So my big decision each day is what do I use to texture the plate before printing.

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Monday, March 2, 2015

Lining the squares up

I finished quilting the background for last years weekly leaves, trimmed it and the binding is on. Today I set about trying to line up all the squares onto the background. My table in StudioB is exactly 48" wide so I had a flat surface to work on. I got up on my step stool halfway thru to take this picture.

I marked the spacing on a 48" ruler to help me line them up, you can tell that the ones on the left are a bit off. Here it is from another angle.

They are all pinned in place, and I've moved them back into Studio A to hand sew them down.

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the month of mono prints that I had done several years ago, and it got me thinking that I should do something like that again. I have an 8" round gelli plate and I do like working in black and white, so I am doing a print a day for this month. I've started out with black paint on white fabric, but I may do some white on black also. Here are the first two.

I have no plans yet for the group, but will probably cut them into quarters and see what happens.

The Weekly Leaf

We will be having a soy wax play day here on Friday, so to get warmed up this weeks leaf was done with soy wax. I have a large leaf shaped tjap that I used to stamp the melted wax onto a square of light green hand dyed fabric.

Then the fabric was over dyed with a darker green. The wax was then removed with very hot water.

Week #9,year 2
After lots of french knots (what was I thinking?).

Daily Stitching updates.

Silk Fragments #55-#61

The Daily Paper #348-#354

I haven't done my assignment for the sketching and watercolor class yet. This week we are doing a shoe. I went upstairs earlier this afternoon to get the shoe I was going to do and obviously got side tracked and did something else because I just now realize that I never brought the shoe downstairs and I never did the assignment.

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Monday, February 23, 2015

Quilting a background

Most of this past week has been spent quilting a 4' x6' whole cloth background for last years weekly leaves. I've only got a few more outline rows to go, then I'll block it, cut it to size, face it and then the real work of sewing each of the 52 squares on. This is how it looked yesterday.

Our assignment this week for sketching and watercolor was to do flowers. I had a pot with a few violas in it so they became my models.

The Weekly Leaf
My Valentine bouquet had some very sturdy ferns in it, the flowers didn't last very well but the ferns are doing great. I've got some being pressed and picked one that had a nice curve to it and did a gelli print. I forgot to take a picture until I'd cleaned everything up, but here's the results.