One thing I love about Oregon's Willamette Valley is the sunsets. It was partly cloudy today, which makes for a more interesting sky when the sun begins its evening descent.
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| Tonight's sunset. |
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| . . . and a few minutes later. |
Yesterday I did some deconstructed screenprinting. First, I removed the items I'd embedded in the thick, wet thickened Procion dye on the back of a silkscreen, after making sure the dye was very dry. Then I mixed up some print paste (urea, sodium alginate, water) and let it thicken. The screen was placed on top of my soda-soaked fabric, and print paste was spooned into the "well" at the (inside) top of the screen. A squeegee was used to pull the print paste across the screen, which releases the dried dye on the back and prints the image.
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| Ready to pull the next print onto fabric. |
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| Ink remaining on screen after deconstructed screenprinting. |
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| The mess in my kitchen nook (AKA my printmaking studio!) |
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| Wet prints on fabric, ready for batching. |
Today I rinsed the batched fabrics, then wash, dried, and ironed them. I got a few nice surprises (always the best part), as well as a few duds.
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| Series of prints from one screen. |
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| Detail shot of print from another screen. |
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When I finished working with the screens last night, I did a little
dye-painting (painting with thickened dyes). Since the next
Fiberexplorations challenge is LETTERS, I played with writing, using a
narrow paintbrush and for the very thin lines, a curved plastic syringe
from the veterinarian's office.
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| Detail of dye-painted piece. |
