Surface Design

 I have been very busy receiving and processing the entries for the Victorian Quilters Showcase. We are still in the middle of harsh lockdown restrictions and so an in-person show is very unlikely to happen this year.  We have decided to judge in person (when we are allowed to meet) and then have a virtual quilt show. So, I still have many emails to write, many files to print and many things to organise for November. But, the entries we have received are absolutely wonderful.

In between doing all this working and planning and phone calls, I have been doing some surface design.

I started with printing on some PFD (Prepared for Dyeing) fabric with some screen printing ink and stencils.

Then I added some Sun Dyes paint in Opal (blue), Tan Bark (brown) and Lorikeet (green) colours and put them outside to dry.

The weather was a bit rainy after that so I had to wait a couple of weeks before I added the second layer of paint. This time I over painted with Opal, Kangaroo Paw (red) and Opal. I didn't like the yellow green of the Lorikeet but it looks good when mixed with other colours.

Here is the result, that second layer of paint really makes a difference.

It was an experiment to see what the paint looks like with stencils underneath. I am planning on cutting this fabric up, not using it as it is, but I really like the result.

I over painted some commercial fabric with text on it as well.

I have also been watching some You Tube videos on Collage with paper and decided to try some techniques.

One of the videos said that you don't need to buy special collage paper, just paint over magazine papers with paint and stencils. So, I did.

Then I painted over some pages from an old paperback novel.

I admit that they don't look very special and I was disappointed. But when I tore them apart and just used little bits of them in collage, they were fantastic. The added bonus was that the paint gave them strength and they didn't wrinkle when I glued them down with matte medium. They gave such a painterly quality to the collage.

I haven't actually taken any photos with them in a collage, I'll have to do that though.

I also managed to buy some more fabric on-line. I added some black Kona cotton to the order so I could qualify for half price shipping!

Everyone is getting very sick of our lockdown restrictions and unfortunately the number of cases is going up, not down because people are breaking the rules and seeing family and friends.

We even had the drama of an earthquake last week, it was 5.9, the highest ever recorded here. At least it gave us something to talk about.

Bye for now,

Linda