Teal

All things teal coloured currently in my studio. Is it a summer colour?

Textile Art Tote Bag

I found this lovely teal batik at the Sew Peachy Sewing Studio in Creston, BC. It made up so nicely into these two textile art tote bags. The fine weave of batiks makes for a light unlined bag that's easy to carry with you. 

Hydrangea 

The hand painted hydrangea was dyed 3 times. First, was a low immersion dye with light blues and purples. The second time, light blue green was added for leaves. That didn't quite seem like enough so I soda-soaked the material again and did a negative painting technique around the plant leaving the piece so much richer looking.

Drawstring Lined Bag

This rayon piece of fabric was inspired after visiting a turquoise mine.

Lighthouse on Kootenay Lake

Hand (dye) painting large pieces of fabric with sky colours can lead to such creativity. Once the background is done, there are so many directions one can go with each 5 X 7" textile card top.

Dark Teal Sewn into a Summer Top

The perfect buttons were found in my upcycle button box for this sewn summer top.

Yarrow Experimentation

There is only one 5 X 7" piece left of this strip of rayon that I painted some time ago. It has been very versatile so I am keeping this one for a sample for future dye painting.

 

Leaf Drawstring Bag

The hand painted art piece was stamped onto unbleached cotton material some time ago. Recently, when I was sewing some gift bags I incorporated into this lined drawstring bag.  

July is a Good Month for Fabric Painting

Painting with Dyes on Cotton Fabric

Working in the heat of the summer is advantageous for the chemical reaction of the dyes with the soda soaked fabric. Warmth enhances the 'colour set' of the dyes. One thing you do have to think about though, especially if you are working on a large piece of fabric is to avoid letting the piece dry out. To minimize this, I work quickly, apply a generous amount of the thickened dye and lightly lay a piece of plastic over areas that I have completed. Moisture helps with the chemical reaction of the dyes and fabric so it is important for the dyes to remain a little damp overnight.

I always remember a hint about fabric painting from my friend Gail. When painting on the fabric, I will dip out a spoonful of the colour of thickened dye I want, onto a plate, along with any other colours I want to mix together. For instance, I might spoon out a dollop of yellow and a smaller amount of blue to mix together for green. Once I've finished painting with that colour, I might set it aside to use later in another area. Here is where the hint comes in. As my paint brush is going from the soda soaked fabric to the dye, the brush may carry soda ash back onto the dye plate. This soda ash will interact with the dye and start lessening it's colour strength. Therefore to limit this, I clean the mixing plates of the remaining dye often. Usually within every 2-3 hours or between finishing one piece of fabric and starting another. 

I share these ideas with you so that if you are ever painting with dyes, you are aware of them and thus have the greatest chance of success. It is mighty disappointing to rinse out a piece you've worked hard on and have it's colours be faded.

112 five by seven inch images

I've been working the last 2 weeks on these 112 images. With these small 5 X 7" pictures, I first drew the image in black dye using a bottle with a nib that I can squeeze out a small stream of black dye with. I took the extra step of rinsing the material after it had 'batched' overnight and then re-soda soaked the fabric. This was time consuming but it saved the chance of the black bleeding with the addition of coloured dyes and it allowed me to paint right over those black lines if I chose to because the black dye was set.

What beautiful gradation of colours hydrangeas have 

I admire the hydrangeas of my neighbour. Each image I painted has a reference to something in my life. I believe most artists work this way.

Border Collies and Black Labs painted with dyes on fabric

I've been painting a dog series in watercolour and so I tried painting some Border Collies and Black Labs onto fabric too.

Experimenting

The next two examples are over painting a low immersion dyed piece of fabric. Previously I had scrunched up a piece of fabric, placed it in a container, added some liquid dyes and poured warm soda ash solution over it. I am not really sure if over-painting on pre-dyed fabric, is going to be a success yet or not. When I start adding details in stitching, I will better be able to assess how this technique works. 

Note: some images are upside down and some sideways as I was working from both sides of the table.

Experimenting: Several small images on this one piece of fabric. 

 I think some of the pieces will require some additional fabrics to be stitched on top so as to show enough variance of values to see the images. It should be a fun challenge.

Experimenting: 12 small images that will be cut up for making textile cards

 More Experimenting

I had a little strip of cloth left over so I thought I would try some figures. In watercolour these are referred to as 'incidental' figures as they add interest to a painting but they are not detailed. I am looking forward to working on some larger textile pieces and these 'incidental' figures might just be what is needed in them.

My next step with all these small images will be to adhere them to heavy weight interfacing, cut them out and add free motion stitching details. They will then be attached to card stock for textile cards. I hope you are enjoying some creative time this summer.

Creating Cards for Spring

Making Textile Cards

My Favorite for Spring

Looking for some new cards for spring? I have a new selection at Creston Card and Stationery, in Creston, BC. You can always contact me if you want something specific. 

Do you want to make some textile cards yourself? Below you will see the start of the process. Click here  or Click here for two other posts about the process of painting with dyes. 

Here the painted dye is wet. I am painting on soda ash soaked cotton which reacts with the dyes so their bond becomes permanent with the fabric.

Sometimes I put the thickened black dye in a bottle with a nib and draw the image first. You can see the bottle in the upper right corner of the photo below.

Oh the excitement of applying the thickened dye to fabric. I find it easiest to work on few card tops at once. That way if I am mixing the red dye I can apply it to several sections while I have some mixed up. You have to work fairly quickly as the setting of the dye relies on moisture so you don't want the fabric drying out. After the dye is applied I then put the fabric in between two pieces of plastic to cure 24-48 hours at 70 degrees F or above.

A length of fabric that has been rinsed, washed twice with Synthrapol which is a detergent that helps keep excess dye from moving to other areas and staining it. I like to iron the pieces dry. Mostly because I can't wait to see how they've turned out!

Another piece of cotton was painted with dyes in a way that may suggest landscapes. I like to use up the little bits of mixed dye colours that I have left over when painting the specific images such as in the photo above this one. Let your imagination run wild.

A window cut out of card stock can be used to choose the composition.

Heavy interfacing is ironed on the back of the fabric where I will be cutting the card top. I use 4" X 6".

Here is a sample of a length of cloth with the interfacing on, now ready for cutting out the card tops. Did you note that two of the corners are lacking an interfacing backing? They didn't make the grade and were culled out. On one the black dye bled into the yellow of the butterfly. This happened as I was too impatient to let the black cure overnight before adding the yellow dye. I managed to get away with it on the larger butterflies as I stayed away from the black line as much as possible. Reminder to self, plan to sketch out images with black dye and cure overnight!!!

This one turned out much better and with additional free motion stitching it should be a card that someone will like as it reminds them of spring. I was quite please with the sky in this one. It was a very light mix of blue, having a lot of the thickener (sodium alginate) in it. I sponged it on. It reminds me of those breezy days in May and June.

Peony and Lily Painted on Fabric

Hand painted 'Peony' on textile
by Eileen Gidman

 

Working with Someone Else's Vision: Creating something for someone else, usually isn't not too hard when you are giving a gift, however when you are doing commissioned work the process becomes a little more involved I find. Some artists avoid commissioned work but I find I like the challenge of it. Every time I learn something from it as I am often engaged to create something I wouldn't think of on my own. Such was the case with a recent commission of flowers to be painted onto textile.

 

The purchaser, an accomplished quilter asked for two fabric pieces with specific flowers on them that were meaningful for her. She provided me with her own photographs as noted below. She asked for the background to be a mottled medium green and a 14 X 15" size.

 

Then my work begins:

1. New dyes and soda ash solutions are mixed
2. Mercerized cotton fabric is soda ash soaked and air dried 
3. The composition of the images are considered and adjusted as need. I felt the peony sketch required the full peony to be showing, so that was added in
4. The images are sketched on the fabric using a black thickened dye that I applied using a squeeze bottle with a very fine metal nib on it. (I purchase them at the Dharma Trading Co). The fabric is then placed in plastic overnight at a warm temperature. Temperature is a big consideration when setting the dyes.
5. The colours are mixed and painted on. I generally start with the darkest colours first. This is where one of my challenges came. I had never before worked such fine detail as would be required for the peony petals. Painting with thickened dyes requires that the dyes have to be a bit thick in order to not have the dye just bleed everywhere and because of that thickening, it does not brush easily into small areas. What to do??? Well I was very careful with the mixing of the thickener into the dye. Not too thick and not too thin and I used a very small brush.
6. Unlike the photo where the flower and leaves were lighter than the background, I knew I would have to adjust things in order to have the background a mottled medium green as requested. For there to be contrast, the leaves were painted with some very dark coloured dyes. Darks are the most difficult to achieve when painting with thickened dyes and you must put your colours much darker than they will be in the final product. I have learnt that the dark green must look black when you apply it. The darks of the lily were also a challenge to consider. The photo didn't show much change in the dark burgundy colour but I wanted give the impression of the lily petals bending over so I varied the colour slightly to show highlights.
7. Painting the fine dots as the petal turned to white on the lily was fun, being sure to make the pattern irregular. Can you see there is a fine white line on the edge of the petals where they overlap each other? More fine brush work was required there.
8. It was a big session of painting both pieces at the same time but this was done to ensure the colours in the two pieces were cohesive.
9. Before covering them in plastic, I let the pieces air dry just a little as the darks were especially saturated having had two or three layers applied. I didn't want the colours to run into each other when covered. However moisture is needed to complete the process of the dye molecules adhering to the fabric so timing was everything.
10. After 24 hours, well actually 22 hours in this case, I quickly rinsed each piece under the cold water tap. Both fabric pieces were placed separately in it's own bucket of cold water to allow any un adhered dye molecules to rinse out overnight.
11. The next day the pieces were washed in hot water with a textile detergent and rinsed until the water was clear.
12. As the pieces were not large, I pressed them until they were dry. This is an anxious part of the process for me as I am never sure until this point if I will be happy with the set of the dyes.
13. I know the night after I painted these pieces, I dreamt of the darks all washing out. Fortunately they did not and the resulting colours were just as I planned.

 I couldn't be more pleased with the results on the petals of the peony.  The detail showed and the darks of the leaves are just what I wanted.

Hand painted lily on textile.
by Eileen Gidman

 The depth of colour on the lily makes me so happy. The customer's words were "They are beautiful. I love them" That response makes a commissioned piece all worthwhile. 

I am so looking forward to seeing what the customer (quilter) does with these pieces which are to become gifts for Christmas.

It looks like I have some time in my schedule in November, so email me at egidman@kootenay.com if you would like me to create something for you.

I am busy preparing for a very special Sept. Check back for more information about where I will be painting for a month!

Painting Skies on Textile Tutorial

On pre-soda soaked cotton fabric, using dye (Procion fibre reactive dyes) liquid concentrates that I mixed from powder, I painted in some sky and clouds. To achieve the gradation from dark to light, I went over the top area twice with a dark blue and lightened the blue dye with a chemical (urea) water as I worked my way to the bottom. The clouds needed some detailing so I....

placed some mixed dye thickener (sodium alginate) in a container and....

added a small amount of blue dye.

Here is the piece after some thickened dye is brushed onto the bottoms of the clouds. 

Here is the piece after it has been cured in plastic overnight and then rinsed. You can see there is some lightening which is to be expected. What a great start this would be for a landscape art quilt.

On this piece I added some dye thickener (mixed sodium alginate) by brush to the fabric in a sun burst shape. The thickener acts somewhat as a resist.

Here it is pictured above the textured clouds. I painted around the sunburst as much as possible and the thickener kept the other dyes from bleeding into that area.

This is the completed and rinsed piece. I think a little thread painting would complete this piece.

I tried a dramatic sunset over water.

When you are painting one panel, you might as well be painting two as you've already mixed the  dye colours which is the time consuming part.

Wouldn't this sky panel be fun to add stitching or applique to. 

Sunrise over water. These rich colours were achieved by painting over each area about three times with the unthickened dye concentrates, allowing for a little time between the layers so that the dye was absorbed into the cloth. I plan to be in the studio again tomorrow and would like to paint this last image in some other colour combinations. Suggestions?

Tutorial: Painting with Dyes - Greens!

Painting with Dyes: All About Green

 

This quilt block I painted with dyes is inspired by the Japanese Garden in our Millennium Park in Creston, BC. The garden was designed by Gary Smith. Note the lantern in the foreground. 

 Painting with dyes is not like painting in watercolours nor oils or acrylics. Unless you are painting with the dyes very wet, it is difficult to blend two colours together so how do you have different shades of green within one painting? Painting with a light, medium and dark green is what works best for me when I am trying to depict form in shapes, such as a tree, when painting on textile. The following is my own typical method.

Here you can see I have drawn out 9 pictures that will be eventually cut up into 8" for quilters to purchase. It is easier to work with them in a larger piece than precutting them. I sketch the images using a thickened black dye in a bottle with a nib. I leave this fabric to cure overnight in plastic. The little bit of green showing has been added the second day.

 

Painting the Greens:

Step one: Mix a dark green using thickened dyes. I like to use lemon yellow, turquoise blue and lots of black to mix the darkest green. Then I proceed to paint all the dark green areas. I imagine a light source and paint the shadows on the opposite sides of the shapes as you can note in the tree below.

 



 

Here most of the dark greens have been added. I use a sponge to add the darks in the grassy areas.

 

 The medium green is mixed with a lot of yellow and a bit of blue.

 

 

The green that is a medium value (darkness), has been painted all over the nine blocks next to the darkest of the greens. Be sure to leave areas for the highlights.

 For the lightest shade of green, I add the clear sodium alginate that is used for thickening the dyes to the yellow with a small amount of blue.

Here is the mix. A bit of urea water was added to thin the light green for painting and sponging.

 The completed 9 squares with the lightest green

 A close up of the three shades of green painted on the evergreen tree and the three shades sponged on the birch tree.

 

When I paint a lot of one colour, I often add just a little of it's complement to 'ease the eye' thus you can see a little red sponged in with the green.  I find it more comfortable to look at. Do you?

 

 The completed piece ready for putting in plastic to batch/cure overnight before rinsing.