Decontructed screen printing results!

We had guests here to visit my uncle and for cake and coffee today and it was all I could to keep from rushing them out of the house so I could get to my screens...LOL!

All set to get started -- I was sooooo excited and I had nine screens ready!

Off to a good start, I think...

I was really happy with this. I have plans for it already, but I need more like this!

Some of these were not so thrilling, but like Rayna says in her book -- you can always go back in and do more with it.
I don't even know what I was thinking.
Black on pink??
The only time you see that in real life is at Victoria's Secret... :)

Needs more maybe...or not.

Kind of cool patterns from that really fugly table runner

Was pretty happy with this.

This was from the leaves.

This is growing on me.
I have no idea what it was, except I do recognise some sequin waste.

Not what I thought it would be, but I still like it. You can try to plan for a certain effect, but I think it's really just like a box of chocolates...(fill in the rest)

Paintsticks

I have a lot of texture sheets from working with polymer clay and metal clay and some paintsticks I bought at least a year ago. So, as long as I had most of my studio lined with newspaper already...

Nothing special in mind -- just wanted to see what the textures would look like.

I like the smell of the paintsticks -- all I needed was a little linseed oil and some turps!

As long as I'm already making a mess...

...might as well make a big mess!

Had this in the fridge for gelatin plate printing. From Rayna Gillman's book 'Create your own Cloth' and her Quilting Arts workshop DVD "Printing from your Pantry"

Fresh pile of stuff including my collection of potato mashers that I use for batik. These are some of my favorite toys -- I'm always hunting for cool mashers.

And this gives me a chance to try out my new Karen Pharr textile paints that I bought at the Sewing Expo.

Masher 1

Masher 2

Rayna has a piece in her book done with this same masher I think.

I pruned a plant for this one.

First layer was a piece of the varmint fence that the bunnies chewed through to eat all of my beans and pepper plants and carrots and radishes and kohlrabi last summer (but I'm not bitter...) and a second layer with sequin waste.

A little of everything

More mashers

I was maybe a little too enthusiastic and the plate started cracking, but I like that too. I'm saving to play some more tomorrow. After the screen printing.

This was so much fun I could barely stop myself.
I have a hundred more thing I want to try this with.

I wonder how large of a gelatin plate I could make?

Getting ready to deconstruct!

Rayna Gillman has a Deconstructed Screen Printing workshop at LQuit.
I have GOT to get to one of her classes. I've really enjoyed everything that I've tried from her book, the QA dvd and the online workshop!
I'm going to need a bigger worktable, I think. By the time I got everything set up and all the stuff-that-I-wanted-to-try-to-pull-dye-over, gathered, I had about 3 square feet of studio left...

I made print paste a couple of days ago and mixed up bright yellow, strongest red and mixing blue.

I made the first screen over this really hideous. plastic. silver. plastic. lace. plastic. table runner.

And I used way too much dye paste, so I tore up some fabric, ran down and gave it a quick soak in soda ash solution and used the pieces to muck up the extra dye,

Mucking up another set-up. The cloth was wet, but I still got some pretty interesting pieces that way.

Oh look -- there are the gloves that I forgot to put on because I was so excited to try this...
Oops...too late.

Another set-up of dollar bin trivets and crocheted doilies.


More mucking up

I actually managed all this mess without a drop of dye on the white carpet!!

I think the screen with this set-up will be pretty cool.

Clean up from the first two -- before I figured out how much paste to use!

Three more -- can't wait till tomorrow to see what I get from the screens!

And another three.

All nine screens on my drawing table, drying.
Waiting...

Silkscreen discharge

Last night I made up some screens, drawing with Elmer's washable school glue gel, hoping to go outside and try some screen discharge. When I got up, it was pouring outside -- I mean POURING! Bummer.
Then all of a sudden, it totally cleared up, the sun came out, the birds were singing, the squirrels were frolicking...

And I hauled my gear outside.

This screen was writing, but didn't discharge well at all. It's the same bolt of fabric that I used for discharge last week, when it performed beautifully. Maybe the sun was a problem? Of course, part of the fun of discharge is it's unpredictability.

I was looking at the lino-cut prints of the tree when I was drawing on screens last night, so I drew that too. You can see where the watercolor sticks stained the screen, but it didn't affect the mesh.
I love how quickly this purple Kona discharges and the color it turns into. This is right before the next storm hit and I hightailed it back inside.

This wound up looking better after the washout.
I got 6-7 prints off of each screen before the glue degraded and started peeling off. .

This was from a third screen -- just some doodling

I love this piece...and that tree.

I was really pleased with the way there's a white ring around the moon and all the tiny white branches (that don't really show in the photo). It has a batik-like look to it. I'll probably be drawing that tree in hot wax next...

Linocuts

I guess the printmaking is still in my blood. No doubt I'll be dragging out the etching stuff next.

I took a pic of this tree at least 10 years ago when we were out for a ride in the country after a big blizzard. Remember those car rides? Before gas was almost $4 a gallon...


Maybe from the same ride? I think this is the wooden elevated walkway to Brandywine Falls.