Saturday, August 29, 2020

Painting with Dyes for Textile Art Cards

Bear cub in the wildflowers

Coral! What a delightful colour. As I mix my colours from the 3 primary dyes, (fuchsia, turquoise and lemon yellow) repeating a colour can be challenging. Nonetheless I found myself mixing various shade of it often in the marathon of textile painting I've been doing. 
This piece will include some stitching details before it is made into a card.

You can find my textile cards for sale in Creston, BC at Creston Card and Stationery  or at Cresteramics (and Gift Store) Contact me at eileengidman@gmail.com if you are looking for something specific. They are a gift, as well as a card as they are signed and fit in a 5 X 7" frame or mat. 


This is how I start on a piece of soda ash soaked and dried, natural fiber fabric. In this case it is an excellent quality mercerized cotton. Note the mixed dyes on the far end of the table. 



Painting with thickened dyes using a watercolour brush. Even though the bike and bear images will be cut apart into 5 X 7" size, I sometimes paint a few skies together.



The foam plates are used over and over and make good palettes for the dye colours I mix.



If I am wanting some detail in the images, I paint them first, cure them overnight and then paint in the backgrounds. 


For this style, I paint on a fine lawn cotton. Although I can't get as much detail as with the mercerized cotton, this fabric is most like painting on watercolour paper. I might paint with the dyes without thickening them and allow the dispersion of the pigment as with the clouds in this piece.

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Textile Art on Small Tote Bags


Textile Art Tote Bag (sold)
by Eileen Gidman

Some new textile art coming out of my studio. They are currently available at Cresteramics Gift Store in Creston, BC and by emailing me at egidman@kootenay.com or private message through Facebook

A small tote bag is very versatile! Here are some things people have told me they are using their bags for:
  • snacks
  • mask and hand sanitizer
  • a book
  • knitting
  • sketchbook
  • water bottle
  • Ipad
  • sudoko puzzle book
  • snacks for birds
  • gift giving
These small and light tote bags are decorated with hand painted (with dyes) textile art making them all original. Yes and they are also washable.

There are many, many patterns for tote bags and I have previously made ones using larger pieces of textile art but I think what makes this tote bag unique, other than the artwork, is the fact that it is so light. It is not made for heavy items being one layer of material but when one only needs to carry a few little things and lately that seems like it is always the case, it feels great to be toting only a small bag.

Chickadee Small Tote
Sold


Small tote sewn from batik fabric and decorated with a hand painted landscape.


A friendly bear walking in a flower filled meadow.


Fireweed decorated small tote.