More To Monoprinting...

...than meets the eye.  I usually monoprint with ink, fabric paint or transfer paints, but today, for some unknown reason, I decided to monoprint with transfer dye, instead.  In case you're wondering, the difference (as they used to say on a long defunct advert) is in the thickness; transfer paints are thicker than transfer dyes.  I'm really rather pleased with the results.  The paper I'm using is newsprint, my paper of choice for working with transfer dyes and paints, as it is thin and therefore doesn't hold onto as much of the dye as a thicker paper might.  And here are the end results, with one or two painted papers mixed in.

These are, as you can see, fairly large papers, so the monoprinting process was done, not on glass, or my favourite plastic, but direct onto the surface of a picnic table; worked a treat.  Here's a closer look at one of the prints.

Monoprinting has to be the simplest form of printing, and the most direct.  However, there is, I believe, more to it than meets the eye when you're working in textile.  The six million dollar question for me is, where is the stitch going to go?  There has to be room for stitch in your design; if it looks absolutely perfect without stitch, then it probably is, and you should leave it be.  If it's really ornate and fiddly, there might also not be room for stitch.  So I like to keep my monoprinting simple, and try to remember that this is not the end of the process, but rather, the beginning.

The other half-day workshop I'm teaching at FOQ is on monoprinting (Friday and Sunday).  I've been working on some small samples to show my pupils, and to hang on the stand, as well as making up monoprint kits to sell.  The workshop is called 'Monoprint Magic'.  So, what's the magic?  Well, that would be telling...you'll just have to come and take part, to find out!

Still Working...

on this piece, which I talked about here ;

Today, though, I decided to work on the piece of board that I'd used as the base of the monoprint that colours it.

I should say that the dark blue isn't quite as strong as it seems in this image...but hey... it's a photo...
I decided to use it on as a warm-up piece today, when I went out to paint.  And here's the end result:

So... how did I get from there to here?  I started by spraying the piece with Lemon Brusho, deliberately varying the strength in some areas.  I don't like flat colour; I think it's boring.  Varying the colour makes it much more interesting to look at, and helps the eye to travel round the image.  While it was drying, I wiped off as much of the yellow as I could from the little circles, smudging it into the shapes, turning them into a lovely blue green shade.

But it wasn't enough.  The obvious thing to do, given my current work, was to print over the top of it.  I might have contemplated another monoprint, but  it seemed a bit predictable.  Instead, I took a look at a collagraph I made last weekend.  I tried it out on a piece of scrap cloth, in green; here it is...

I liked the way that it worked, so decided to try it on the monoprint; it worked very nicely.  And that, I thought, was that...  but nothing is ever that simple.  I had made an earlier trial print of the collagraph, in a reddish brown colour, but it was not particularly successful.  When I printed on the monoprint, some of the red brown colour was transferred.  I found it catching my eye.  And so, finally, I added some random dots of red and green paint to the piece.  I was surprised how well it worked; it seemed to pull the whole piece together.

Now, all I have to do is finish the textile piece... it's coming together slowly.  I think I have an idea...

Stamping...

...isn't something I do very often.  Mostly, that's because I don't like using other peoples' images or work.  I have never gone for the Somerset Studios variety of mixed media, that uses copyright free images, usually vintage.  There used to be an awful lot of it about, and it all looked the same.  Not my thing.  Sometimes, though, it's justifiable, usually when I want an effect that I can't reproduce myself; like this.

I can't imagine carving something as detailed as this; actually, as you know, I'm giving that sort of thing up, as soon as I've finished the current crop of lino blocks for the Spears and Shields series.  And sometimes I see a stamp that I Just Like, so I buy it.  Mostly, though, if I can't make it myself, I don't use it.

When I went into the studio this morning, I discovered, to my surprise, that the paint I'd mixed earlier in the week was still usable, thanks, I presume, to a combination of medium and clingfilm.  So I thought I'd try out the stamp, which arrived about a week ago.  I love text and the allusion of text or words...that's perhaps not all that surprising.  I've wanted a stamp like this for a very long time, but have never got round to buying one.  This one will do nicely.

So...I also discovered that I'd let the paint dry on the glass board I'd been using to roll out the paint for printing.  Unthinking, I dumped more paint on, and started to work.  Thoughtlessness and laziness are a deadly combination... look what happened....

That texture is the result of the dried-up paint being rehydrated, catching on the roller and peeling off.  This is Not A Good Thing.  Reader, I trust you will not be doing this, for lo, I am a Bad Example.  If I'd thought about it, I could have turned the board over before I started, and used the other side (I didn't).  So in the end, I scraped as much of the dried up paint as I could, before wiping the board with a floor wipe (face wipes really aren't big enough for studio use).  And I started again.

I wanted to start to build up a couple of layers, so took a piece of lutradur 120 which had already been coloured,  stamped the text on it, and then made a monoprint on top of that.  The monoprint was in two sections, as you can see from the photographs.

I think this has interesting textures.  The paint for the monoprint was added to an old lino block (the proper, traditional lino); it seemed to work fairly well.  And we're back to waiting for the machine to come home... I think a phone call on Monday will be in order, given that there's a queue building up.

Waste Not...

...well, yes, I have a thing about not wasting paint.  And there was some left over from the painting I did on the last piece so...reader,  I made monoprints.  Well, technically, one monoprint and one ghost print.  I had been given some interesting paper, just the right size for the inside of a pamphlet book, so...

A ghost print, if you're not familiar with the term, is the second print from any given monoprint plate. There isn't anything like the amount of paint left, hence the term 'ghost'. The texture of the second piece of paper, which holds the ghost print, is quite interesting.  I think, for once, I'll leave the white as it is, it works fairly well.  I don't have any more white at this size, which will make the book more interesting, I hope, though I will stick to pastel colours.  And because of the nature of a single signature pamphlet book, I will only add perhaps another two sheets, three at most.   There's a fair amount of work to be done before they are made into a book, though.  Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, there needs to be another monoprint made on the other side of the paper, because books are three dimensional (yeah, I know, I'm repeating myself...). And then the same with the other pages. Interestingly, fortunately and completely coincidentally, there's clear space on both sides of the print, allowing me to add words....hurrah... and that will have to be repeated throughout the book. 

So now, I need to work out how many pages, what the theme is (landscapes, I suspect, and possibly  Norfolk landscapes, more specifically), what the words are (I may already have a poem...but I think I have a different idea...so perhaps a new one).  And what the cover will be.  But it's a good start...and all because I didn't want to waste some paint.  See what I mean about ideas?  They're ten a penny.  All you have to do is pay attention.

One Thing...

...inevitably leads to another...or in this case...six others.  It seemed like a good idea at the time....it always does.  I was working on this monoprint from the small collection I was talking about yesterday.  As you can see, lots of stitch..  The piece is on a scrap of muslin I got from a friend.  I don't usually work on muslin, but it was to hand, and there was paint and... you get my drift. 

The sections that are reading as very pale blue at the top of the piece, were originally white: because there was such a lot of white in there, and because I don't much like white, I popped a small piece of lutradur behind it, which was blues and purples...it worked very nicely, and didn't add any bulk to the piece at all.  Sadly, it didn't do much for the bottom left hand corner, so I decided to add some more paint.  So I mixed some up, and, rather than paint it on, printed it on, instead.  And then I trimmed it a bit, because I felt it was just too dominant...and got this.

Which is altogether better.  And put it aside to dry.  And then I thought, better wash up the piece of glass I was using to monoprint from (no gelli plates here, I'm too mean, and am quite happy with the traditional method).  And realised that there was still a blob of paint on the glass...and I really don't like washing perfectly good paint down the sink.  You so know what's coming next, right?  Yes, more monoprints.

The one I've just shown you was very landscape-y, so I thought I'd continue in that vein.

Each print has a 'ghost' print, made from the remains of the paint on the glass: I often prefer the ghost prints for stitch, because the paint suggests, rather than dominates, leaving ample room for stitch.  But of course, the excess paint had been blue, and I'd scooshed out some Naples Yellow and there was too much...it's becoming a theme, this, isn't it?  So...

The blob at the bottom of the ghost is a bit unfortunate, but I'll trim that off before I start...otherwise, these are okay.  I suspect that there's a larger painting waiting to get out of this... it's part of the joy of monoprinting, that things for development are often suggested by this spontaneous way of working. By this time, I was on a roll, but was starting to feel tired, so I finished off with these, adding the paint straight onto the glass, so that there wasn't any left over.   I've been reading about Sean Scully's work, after watching a documentary on him on the Beeb...' this pair is a definite nod in his direction.And then, reader, I washed the glass.  And that gives me enough to play with until next Monday, when I may well paint again....mwahaha...

An (Almost) Matching Pair...

...of landscapes, made from a monoprint and a ghost print.  I talked about the ghost here.  This is the main print...

I'm popping the ghost print down here, for easy comparison. 

There's lots more texture in the main monoprint, much easier to see what's happening in the main body of the 'land',  It's clear that there are a lot of curving lines, so the stitch reflects that.  I like using blanket stitch, it encloses and defines areas of space in a much better way than a running or back stitch is able to.  I did use the same thread in these areas on both quilts, but the sky in this main piece reads as much darker than the ghost print, unsurprisingly, so I used a darker thread in the sky.  The treatment, though, is the same, seed stitches scattered around the blue areas.  I did consider adding linear stitch, but decided that it would distract from what was going on below it, and I didn't want to do that.

So, there you are...two nearly identical landscapes.  It's interesting how different the stitch makes them appear, though it's clear that they are related.  I've got a couple more monoprints in this palette to work on, and it will be interesting to see how they turn out in comparison with these.

Negative Thinking...

affects us all, whether we admit it or not, whether we're depressed or not (though depression does make it rather worse...).  One of my favourites is that I'm lazy, that I don't work hard enough.  And then, as I did today, I go to tidy the studio and realise that it's not strictly speaking true... I just get diverted a lot.  There is, however, a lot of work around...  I picked up these five pieces that had been kicking around the studio (out of a Rather Substantial Pile), waiting for something... In this case, I think they had been waiting for me to get back into hand sewing.

Clockwise from top left is a piece of silk, with yarns and other pieces of silk needlefelted onto it.  Then there is a piece of Evolon which has been printed using one of my hand cut lino blocks, then transfer dyed, then stitched.  Below that, there is a piece of transfer dyed lutradur, fused onto crinkled paper (I think that one is probably upside down in this image).  Fourth, is a piece of shibori painted nylon beneath a piece of transfer dyed lutradur, with a lot of stitch, and finally, a transfer dyed monoprint. All of these pieces need more stitch, except the fourth one, which needs embellishment, I think with tiny lutradur flowers, and maybe some three dimensional leaves... we'll see.

I like all of these pieces, but have a sneaky preference for the first one...though I'm fond of the monoprint, too.  Guess that's my Easter weekend sorted out....what with warping up the peg loom, and starting the rug, and possibly buying a couple of plants (well, it's traditional, right?).  If you celebrate it, have a very Happy Easter.  And don't worry; a girl (or boy) really can't have too much chocolate!

Monoprint Magic...

...was the title of a workshop I gave at Festival Of Quilts.  'What's so magical about monoprints?', one participant asked in a rather snippy voice, 'I've done them before, I didn't think that there was much magical about it.'  Ouch.  Well, I said, we're using transfer paints.  The magic of transfer printing is that you the one (or two) prints that you usually get from a monoprint plate, becomes four (or five, if you're lucky) prints, as the exhaustion point of the paint is much later than it would be using printing ink.  Oh, she said.  I suspect she was unimpressed...but she seemed to have fun anyway, so it can't have been that bad.

I've written about monoprints, too, in the Evolon book, as a good way of developing a series.  So I guess it was inevitable that when I went through the Evolon I'd kept, I would find a couple of monoprints.  These two are, I suspect, Print One and Print Five, as they get paler and paler as the dye exhausts. 

As you can see, I had already started to work with both.  Print One is clearly the stronger of the two; that yellow really sings.  It needed a treatment that was equally as strong, so I started by needle felting a piece of yarn onto the background.  I think I may add another two, and then see where we go from there. 

Print Five, though, is delicate, much too delicate for needle felting. I really like the structured stitching in the lower section of the piece, it seems to work well.  It was intended to reflect the way that the paint has transferred in this version. 

You can see the lines of texture running across the piece, as the dye exhausts at different rates, allowing the texture to show through; whilst there are similar lines in Print One, they are by no means as obvious. 

So far so good.  It's when it comes to the top section that I changed my mind.  I wanted to have something unstructured up there, originally, as a counter to the structured stitching below.  I didn't want the colour or the stitching to stand out too much, so I selected a variegated green/white/blue.

...and as you can see, you can't see it.  It Just Doesn't Work.  Dammit.  I did consider increasing the size of the stitches...but that didn't seem to work any better, and then I discovered I couldn't find the original thread....so this stitching is Coming Out.  Sigh.  It's going to be replaced with this:

And this is so not what I intended...but I think it's what's needed.  A darker variegated thread, much larger stitches.  I had in mind light rain when I decided how to stitch it.  I think it's an improvement.  I suspect it might have been better if I'd been able to cover that whole area in those small stitches, first, but you have to work with what you've got...well, okay, I have to work with what I have, for a whole load of reasons that I won't bore you with. 

More stitching tomorrow, I think.  And if you want to read more about monoprinting, put monoprinting into the search box at the top of the post, and you'll find other discussions.

Using It Up

So...what do you do with the ink left on the palette?  Yes, that's right, you monoprint.  The first one I took went straight in the bin; it was awful.  Too much paint, too much pressure, a brown yuk.  So I cast around for something else to print on, and spotted some very scrunched up tissue paper.  Hmm, I thought... and tore it into four.  Here's one of the resultant prints :

This was the last of the prints, so not quite as much paint on it as the others, and, because I used a brayer, the texture is somewhat flatter than the rest.  Nonetheless, it's still interesting, though it doesn't look like much in these images; better in real life.

Four prints?  For a mono?  Using ink?  Well...yes.  The scrunched up paper doesn't take the ink uniformly, so more than one print, in this case four, could be taken....actually, I think I could have got away with five, but I only had four bits of paper.  

So...what am I going to do with it all?  Good question.  I'm contemplating sticking some of it onto heavier paper or Lutradur XL, for an accordion book.  I'm not all that keen on fusing for it, because I'll lose some if not all of the raised texture of the paper...so perhaps spray adhesive.  And there's something about stitch, probably hand stitch, given the fragility of the paper; fusible interfacing, the usual go to for paper, isn't an option here.  I have some ideas in the back of my head, but for now, I suspect, it'll wait its turn.  There's still some ink to use up, and there's more scrunched paper kicking around...  but first, I need to clear some proper space, preferably on my sewing table, rather than my cutting table.  I think that part of the problem I had with printing pressure, yesterday, was to do with the height of the table.  Working on a lower table, and standing up occasionally, may well make all the difference.  We'll see.  

Every Now And Again...

I make a Useful Quilt, no art involved, really, for the back of a sofa or the wrapping of a baby... this is one such, made for a friend's newly-arrived grandson.  I can show it to you now, as it was collected yesterday.  It's by no means the best thing I ever made, but, as my granny would have said, it'll do a turn.

It's about 36" square.  The centre blocks are African fabrics, bought a year ago for no particular purpose... I had thought about making a book with them, but this seemed an altogether better thing to do. The green was the only fabric I could find that sat reasonably well with  those strong colours, while the surrounding fabric is almost jungle-like, and seemed appropriate.   I like making for babies...I think that commercially made things are either too big or too small to be truly useful. This, though, is roughly the right size for spreading on the floor, or the grass, for tucking a snoozing small child into, on the sofa, or the floor for that matter, for a trip out to the car on a cold, damp day. 

What I did discover, however, while making it, is that this size is too big for me to handle now.  I suppose it's a measure of the deterioration in my health over the last year.  I had no problem a year or so ago with Jessie's Japanese Garden, which was quite a bit bigger (see it here).  It is what it is.  I've just torn up a pile of A4 sized white fabric, to monoprint; I think that's about what I can cope with now.  Not entirely sure what I'll do with the two other quilt tops I talked about in the Japanese Garden post...perhaps hand stitching is a possibility.  We do what we can.

Time Is TIcking On...

...and the 100 fundraiser for the American Cancer Society is approaching (Wed 4th February, to be precise). You can find all the information you need on here,  and a quick selection of the work that's on offer (for only $100 dollars per piece) can be seen here.  I'd intended to post more often, but have been overtaken by events and illness.  Hope this makes up for it...


I thought I'd show you some close ups of the work I'm submitting this week, unveiling the whole piece on Saturday.  The first image has already appeared on Facebook, as a taster...or is that a teaser...?  Either way, here it is.

The work is made from pieced, hand dyed cotton.  This section features a discharge dyed section, delineated in ink, and is closer in colour to the original to the version on FB.  The next section is below:

This section is much more complex.  The top section is discharge dyed, the right hand side, a section of a monoprint, the middle section is made up of dye painted cloth, some of which has drawings on it.  I still work in this way, but on a smaller scale, usually.

So, as I asked my friends on Facebook... can you pick out a theme here?  There have been a few answers already, some of which capture part of the story of this quilt, others which tell the stories that others see in it.  There is, of course, no real right or wrong.... but it's fun to wonder....

more images soon...

Stitch Up.

I felt like doing a bit of stitch, so decided to do a bit more with the second of the two monoprint books I talked about here.  I started by trimming it carefully (and that took all the energy for a while...).

And because of that, I decided to hand stitch.  I have no proof that it takes more energy to machine sew...but it does when the machine isn't set up... sigh.  And in truth, I wanted to see how the hand stitch would work.  I think it does...but it does come with its own issues.

We are taught from the very first stitch, that the back should look as good as the front.  That's fairly easy to do when working with a quilt sandwich, just by burying the knot in the batting.  This, though, is flat, so it's an exposed knot or a double back stitch.  Reader, I went for the double back stitch.  So far so good, huh?   I stitched all the way round the shape (have a look)...only to (stupidly) catch said double back stitch with my needle, and pull half of it out.  No, I really wasn't up for unpicking, so thought, okay, I'll catch the end with the stitch I'm making... and then the paper tore...sigh...and I ended up, yes, you guessed it, with a knot, albeit a small knot, which you wouldn't notice unless you knew were it was.  No, I'm not telling you...and yes, I continued with small knots... they're not particularly noticeable either... fortunately.

The temptation is to work the page as a whole, and that, I felt was necessary for the main motif, that curve, which runs over the fold of the paper.  On reflection, though, I decided that, other than stitching any single motif that occurred in that manner, I needed to respond to each individual half as a separate piece of work. 

The stitch is important, not just because of its effect on the 'front' page, but because of its effect on the reverse.  The reverse has only the bleed from the front, which clearly is not as strong, so the stitch is important in delineating what's going on in the image.  Here's an image showing you how that worked out...I think it's at least as interesting as the reverse, if not more so, in some ways.

I wanted to add some stitches above the main motif, and added crosses to the yellow area which I seem to be reading as the sky.  Another of the rules we're taught right at the beginning, is that all stitches have to be even and similar.  Fortunately, however, this is art, and I can use the skills I learned then, to subvert the tradition. 

And that's as far as I've got.  Time for a rest. 

On A Roll...

...with the monoprint thing... it's getting interesting.  I started with a painting, and then took two monoprints from it, one on cloth, one on prepainted paper.  I suspect the painting isn't quite finished...but I'll need to wait and see. 

And then I thought... use the rest of the paint... and play with greens.  These photographs aren't terribly accurate in terms of colour; apparently my camera doesn't like green... but they're an approximation.  They get looser as I go on, and the paint gets less.

All four are on cloth : the first is on transfer dyed lutradur, just for interest's sake, really.  I don't think every one of these is successful...but I won't know until I've added stitch.  And if they're not, it's okay.  This is about process, not about result.  What I am pleased about, though, is that these feel like mine.  They don't refer to anything or anyone, and whilst I have no idea at present what this is 'about', I have the feeling they'll tell me.  This is my preferred way of working: no idea, no picture in my head that I have to somehow follow, just me, the cloth and the paint.  And that's how I like it.  Now to see if I can find some thread...

Finishing Off...

the small piece on muslin I showed you yesterday.  And I do mean small : it's just over postcard size.  I trimmed it back a little more once I'd finished the stitching.  While there are still areas of white on the edges, I'll be adding a mount, which will cover them.  The colours are reminiscent of Highland hillsides, and I'm fairly pleased with it.

  

So now what?  Well... this was the 'ghost' of another monoprint.  This one is much more definite, has a good deal more colour, and is slightly bigger, roughly 8" square, though that includes a fair amount of white space around the edges...probably closer to 7" square, if that were trimmed away. 

You can see the similarities in structure; there's a clear flow down from that top left hand area, through the blue to the bottom right.  The movement inherent in the paint is much clearer, though, just by dint of there being more paint, and the colour is stronger, all round.  Were I not about to do a fair amount of machine quilting on a different project, I might be tempted to machine stitch it...and I still might.  I do think I'd like to get rid of some of that white, as I did in the first one.  This time, though, I think I'll add some more paint, rather than putting cloth between the top and the batting.  I'll do that, I think, and then make a decision as to how to stitch. 

Spontaneity...

...often leads to interesting work.  I've been playing about with painting fabric, after the success of the Dance piece, and when I'd run out of steam, there was still some paint left.  When in doubt...monoprint... so I grabbed some scraps of fabric.  I got several interesting pieces, one of which I worked up yesterday.

This is how it started.  It made me think of rocks, mountainsides, hillsides... so its name is 'Red Rock'.  So, I popped a bit of batting on the back, and hand stitched...and this is what it has ended up as.

I started at the bottom, stitching with variegated thread to give a reference to landscape (I hope), and then back stitched the red curve in the centre. I didn't want to add vast amounts of stitch, so took my queue from the dots of red that cover that area, and made some small, irregular stitches, just enough to suggest the colour.   Then, blanket stitch in the dominant brown curve, shortening the stitches as I went along to suggest distance.  And finally, I added washes of pale blue and pink watercolour paint, to tone down the white areas that were dominating the piece. 

And that's it.  I did contemplate more stitch in those paler sections, which almost make a V shape in the left hand side of the piece.  Finally, though, I decided that the texture of the paint itself did enough to suggest movement, and let it be, though I did add a few pencil marks to the edges of the diagonal section, just to emphasise it slightly.  And that's it.  I'm quite pleased, all in all, not bad for using up excess paint.

Oops...

...I did it again... apparently cutting things down a bit, wasn't enough.  I need a timer, so that I stop before I get overtired...oh well...  You can see for yourself if it was worth it...

I started, and ended, with monoprints.  My friend Alison encouraged me to make more beach inspired stitched pieces, so I made some basic monoprints for that, on a piece of pale green sheeting...

They'll make half a dozen small pieces...so far so good.  Not particularly wanting to work in those colours, I wiped off the palette... and was so intrigued by the marks that wiping produced, I monoprinted again, this time on a bit of Evolon that happened to be lying around. 

Now this is intriguing, and I'm looking forward to adding stitch, and perhaps a bit of applique... we'll see.  I've always avoided putting paint on Evolon: the hand of the fabric is a big part of its charm, and paint interferes with that.  This, though, is well watered down acrylic paint, and although you can feel it on the fabric, it's not a huge change, so I'm pleased on that score, too. 

And then, because it was lying around, I added a bit more to this small piece, which I actually made last time, but didn't show you.  More monoprinting, to add small bits of colour and texture.

Not sure that it's finished... it'll sit in the studio until it is.  And then I moved to The Main Attraction... another painting on the same basis as those I showed you last time.  Complete change of palette, which makes a big difference...

A landscape feel... not sure that I like it as much as the last one, perhaps because it's moodier.  I can see some things I'll probably change in it when I go back to it...which is a good thing, because it suggests it's not irredeemable.  However, as I was finishing up, I decided I'd added too much paint (yes, it does happen), so took (yes, you've guessed it) A Monoprint from it, to add texture and remove some of the paint.  Look what I got...

I LOVE this.  Texture, colour, movement... it's got it all.  Much more my kind of thing than the actual painting, which feels really heavy by comparison.  I think I'll be doing a good deal more of this, on fabric as well as paper: I think this would be a great base for stitch.  Accidental breakthroughs are the best kind.