Sunday, April 05, 2009

Yesterday I went along to the ERTF AGM & ‘Take a Look At’ Event held in Kesgrave, Suffolk.
It was nice to see Chris and Gina who were both there and to spend a day with a group who are obviously as passionate about art and textiles as I am. Gina won a well deserved prize for an amazing piece of work she submitted. You can see it here on her blog.
After the AGM business we had a choice of four workshops to attend, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
I was lucky enough to attend the session with Viv of ArtVanGo (the birthday girl) who demonstrated a range of materials to use in textile art. One of the items she showed us was JetFX. Although I have used various methods to transfer images to fabric I have never used this product before. It is really good. It keeps the fabric feeling really soft unlike the plasticy feel of some other transfer mediums and there is an awful lot you can actually do with it.
I shall have a play with this during the week and show my samples on next weeks blog.
I can see I will be using JetFX a lot in the future.

My afternoon session was with Rebecca Ray and called ‘From Inspiration to Finished Piece’. A really interesting session, we were able to look through her sketchbooks and admire the work she created while training with the RSN. Take a look at Rebeccas website here – especially the stumpwork self portrait.

All week I had managed to keep my hands and nails lovely and clean so there was no need to sit on them at the AGM to keep them out of sight – right up until Friday afternoon that is when I decided to have a play with Spirit Soluble Dyes on metal shim. I had trouble pulling the little plastic stopper out of the bottle of blue dye. You can guess the rest.
Once again, this is the first time I have used these dyes but the results I achieved have inspired me to go further with this.
This sample and close up is on copper shim. I used an old biro to emboss through a stencil on the back. Turquoise and Orange applied with a dropper with Methylated Spirits dripped on. This sample and close up is copper foil. I sprinkled some gold metallic powder on while the dye was still wet. This is the best sample of the three but would not play ball when it came to being photographed. It is brass shim. Before applying the dye I laid it over a rubbing plate and rolled a brayer over the top a few times to get a slight indentation on the surface. I then decided to heat the shim from behind once the dye was dry. Not a good idea really. A lot of the colour disappeared and its a good job I was doing it outside as there was a lot of smoky fumes coming off. But they still look quite good. Once again, this one does look the best but still wouldn't photograph properly however hard I tried.
Now the weather is warming up and the sun is out again I have been playing with my most favourite technique of all times - rust dyeing.
More about the unusual background material I have used later, but for now just a few close ups.And take a look at the close up on this one! I have just been reading a novel which involved voodoo dolls – spooky.:)By the way, Kate has opened another round of swapping – ALQS3. Read all about it here. She has re-written the ‘rules’ of the game for this round to suit everyone.
This is my third time and I have not been disappointed at all in the quality of workmanship, the fabrics used or the design and colours of either of the two I have already received, a really great swap to be in.

15 comments:

Gina said...

Hi Lynda, It was good to see you yesterday but I was disappointed we didn't get to have a chat... it was such a wonderful busy day. I was impressed with the JetFX too - I thought you might be! Love the look of the experiments with spirit dyes and rust - looking forward to the book coming out too!

Guzzisue said...

dooo ddoooo dooo ddooooo alien faces, scary but wonderful design source for a mask

Genie said...

OOOH those Spirit dyes look wonderful. will have to look at the JetFX as well,
Have a great week

Heather said...

The colours you achieved with the spirit dyes on metal shim are just glorious and the patterns from the rust dyeing are really interesting. I hope you will show us what you have done with them.

Julie said...

I bought some Jet FX last year but haven't tried it yet - story of my life! The metal is gorgeous, I'm assuming you could stitch into it?

I'll look forward seeing what becomes of the rust dyeing, it looks a bit monkeyish to me.

Thank you for the link to Kate ALQS post. I've expressed an interest so now I have to think about what I might do.

Pat said...

Nice toys!! Like Julie I have some JetFX somewhere, time to dig it out.
The little face is wonderful.

Ruth said...

Great samples! Looks like you had a great day and good workshops. Hmm... voodoo dolls showing up in your rust experiments. The rust is trying to tell you something.

Digitalgran said...

Those samples are luscious Lynda!

sharon young said...

Wow!!! I think i held my breath while I read all of this post, brilliant as usual, and always a new technique I no nothing about. I think you must inhabit a different planet to the rest of us :-)
That last pic is awesome, if I were you I'd be seriously worried LOL

Heather said...

Thankyou for your kind comment on my blog. I had to be patient and wait over 20 years for my youngest daughter to take an interest in textiles. I purposely didn't 'bore' them with my interest and suddenly I found a kindred spirit. Sickeningly it takes me four years of C&G to learn how to do things and Julia picks up new techniques in 5 mins!!

Judy Rys said...

Geez, that face is spooky! What did you use to get that result. Looks like the fabric was folded in half.

hippopip said...

Great colours on the metal what dyes did you use Airondack? or another one.I will trybthr brusting on tyvek when it gets warmer but i still hate the stuff

Jackie said...

I recently amazed myself by printing straight on to fabric with no mediums or anything. Just spray mounted a bit of fabric to a piece of A4 paper and pressed print.It woked a treat.

Val said...

Brilliant Blog all round Lynda - love the metal pieces. Thanks for the various links too, very interesting.

Becky Mairi Farrell said...

love your rust dying and the copper even more. Like the idea of embossing with a biro, must give that a go.