Gelatin plate

I forgot about the gelatin plate, and when I opened the fridge, found this.  It had shrunk to almost half its original size and cracked a lot more.  I should mention that we have a spare fridge in the laundry for dog food, fish bait, dyes and booze - the gelatin was residing in there, not my kitchen fridge!

 I did a monoprint and liked the door shape. I mixed some black and white textile ink to get a charcoal and applied it to the gelatin with a spatula.  Printed onto plain white fabric.  I was rather pleased with this.

So I did some more....

I wondered how it would look on a lightly rusted background

.

and finally, on a hand dyed background.

I like this gelatin plate printing - there is an element of the unpredictable, especially once the plate starts to break down, but it isn't completely random and unpredictable.speaking of which, I printed off my deconstructed screen - it is batching now, so will post about it tomorrow.  I don't think it is going to be my 'thing', based on my experience of it - more on that later.

It is Anzac Day - I am remembering all our servicemen and women who have fought for and died for Australia.  I am especially remembering my friend Prue, who died a year ago today in NZ on her way to an Anzac Day ceremony.  And this morning the tragic news that three people were killed in a helicopter crash in NZ, while taking part in a rememberence ceremony.

Lest We Forget.

Day 3 - Mission accomplished!

Well - I got everything done I set out to do. I was up early and washed out all the fabric I dyed. By nine o'clock it was twirling in the breeze. The second photo shows a rust dyed piece on the right, and on the left is one of yesterday's rust pieces that I overdyed. This is the frying pan one

I like the effect that the overdying has - it sort of puts the rust bits into context, rather than just having them floating about on a white background. It has also brought out some details I hadn't noticed before. On the one below, there are a couple of shapes that look like fish -- the washers created 'eyes'- at least that's what I think!

This next piece I didn't show yesterday, before over dyeing -but I really like the criss cross lines in the rust bit. I got that by rolling the fabric around a piece of PVC pipe and then wrapping tightly with thin wire.

Here is a close up of it. BTW, I notice that on my blog, if you click on the photos you don't get a close up - even though that is what happens on everyone else's I visit. Does anyone know what I have to do to make it happen? Are there some special settings/options I am supposed to choose??





This piece I decided not to overdye. I really like how it turned out. I think it has potential to be a whole cloth piece, with some further surface design added.

Here is another piece using the bars from the barrel that my husband cut up. He drilled some holes in one piece (in the centre) and cut one piece with a zig zag edge, like a saw, to add interest (clever fellow!).

Here is a close up of those two pieces.

The only thing that didn't work was the screen I prepared yesterday. I am not sure what was wrong - I think the alginate wasn't thick enough, but anyway, no matter how many times I squeegeed the image wouldn't break down and start transferring - and it took me ages and ages at the sink to scrub the damn thing clean. Maybe I let it get too dry?? Anyway, I can have a go at that another day.

And finally - did I actually MAKE something with all of this? Yes, I did! A little quilt - about 10 x 14 inches. I fiddled around for a while not sure where to begin, then picked up a pencil and sketched a very simple design - the three rectangles and the circle, with a sort of wavy line going through. Then I gathered up the fabrics I had produced this weekend and tried to figure out what to use.

I kept wanting to use the bubble wrap discharge from the earlier post, but as soon as I picked up a piece I had discharged with some rug grip, I saw skyscrapers, and then I knew the circle would be the moon. Once it went from being an abstract to a little city scape, I decided I didn't need the wavy bit. I fused the pieces onto a dyed background with black Misty Fuse and did some simple machine stitching - free form around the circle and with the walking foot round the rectangles. Finished off with some fused binding and ta daa!!

I had a very productive weekend - I have lots of lovely rusted pieces underway and am quickly developing ideas for what to do with them. I do like the discharged pieces though, and still want to do something with the bubble wrap fabrics - maybe some postcards? Stay tuned!

Day 2

Well I got everything done today I planned to - dyed up 2-3 metres of fabric; rust dyed another metre or so; prepared a screen to do some improvisational screen printing (it is still drying); and did a few monoprints using thickened dye, plus pressed all the lovely stuff I made yesterday using my wonderful new Singer magic press thingie - beats ironing!!

Here is a rust dyed piece using the square plate I mentioned yesterday. The little circles are from washers. This next piece turned out well - the big circles are from the paint tin lid and the broad rectangle bit sticking out (like a frying pan with handle) is from a piece of iron that used to be wrapped around a big barrel. I had forgotten that we had one in the garden that rotted away, and my husband had kept the metal bands. He flattened them out as much as possible, and cut them into manageable lengths. I have a piece fermenting away with several lengths of this stuff on it - can't wait until tomorrow to see how it looks!

One problem with this rusting stuff is that it all turns out orange - and I am not a very orange person. Also, I am not enamoured of the stark white of the background. So, I have already dumped these pieces into a soda soak and they have had a wash of fairly dilute procion dye added in slate blue/grey, to tone down the background and complement the rust colour. Will see how they look tomorrow too!


Did some more bleaching - good old bubble wrap monoprint was first.Then I had a go at freehand spirals combined with some made from a rubber stamp. I doubt that exposing my rubber stamps to bleach products is a very good idea. However, I rinsed them off immediately, didn't leave them sitting around in the stuff. Oh well, if it shortens their life, at least it will have been in a good cause!



And finally, a monoprint using the cleaning gel, that didn't quite work - it was too runny, so I got big areas exposed - although, I do think it will make a good canvas on which to stitch, and I can always stamp/stencil/screen on top as well.

There are lots of other pieces, but these are a good sample of what I did. My husband has really got into the spirit of the rust dyeing. He keeps emerging from 'the shed' with new ideas and things to try - some rusty chain emerged a while ago, and he also hammered a lot of little nails (which rust really easily, apparently) into a length of wood, in a nice curvy pattern. I have got those on a piece of fabric - so hopefully, I will end up with a line of little rusted circles - we shall see!

So, tomorrow's jobs are: print off using my dried screen; wash out all the fabric I dyed, dry and press; check on how the rusting is going on the various pieces, AND - make something!!

Discharging and rust dyeing

Two things I have been wanting to try for a while - it is a long weekend here so decided to set aside some serious play time. Decided to start with the simple version of discharging, using gel bleach. All the American sites that mention it suggest using Sunlight dishwashing gel, which seems to be unavailable here. So I went hunting in the supermarket and found these two products - could be more out there for all I know, but this is what I got from two of the big grocery store chains. I used both, and they work fine. White King really packs a punch - has a higher concentration of bleach than even domestos! It works really quickly - probably a bit harder on the fabric. The cheaper no name one takes a little longer to discharge, but is probably not so rough on the fibres.

Here is my first piece - I filled up a curved ended syringe (had a devil of a job finding those, but eventually tracked them down at a dental suppliers). I draw squiggles and then circles, just meandering along, getting a feel for it. When it is still wet, and before neutralizing and rinsing, it was very orange indeed. It has now toned down to more ochre type shades. Quite elegant, I think! All the websites say to neutralize with Anti clor or bleach stop - but neither of these seem to be available in Australia. I did a bit of research and apparently one of them is just a brand name for sodium metabisulphite - which Batik Oetoro sell - so I will order some next week. In the meantime, I made do with hydrogen peroxide from the chemist, which also works, apparently, but will work out fairly expensive to use all the time.

Then I had a go using Thiox (which I thickened with alginate). Here is the result, after pasting it onto a rubber stamp - well, actually, a color box molding mat. The pattern is rather ghost like - I like the effect. Interestingly, the black is from the same bolt of fabric - the bleach based products produce ochres, whereas the thiox (and also the Jacquard discharge paste, which I also tried) produce this silvery image, which has touches of mauve here and there.

And I also had a go at rust dyeing. I recently got the Rust Tex CD which I got from Dale, I didn't have anything rusty lying about, so I asked at work, and someone who keeps a horse on a property around here said he could get me some bits. Not all of them worked - but two pieces in particular did - a rusted lid off what I think is an old paint tin, and a flat piece, that might have been part of a barbeque plate at one time. Right now they are wrapped around some more fabric, simmering away in a bath of vinegar and salt, all wrapped up in black plastic.

But here is one piece that I got done - I only started it 24 hours ago, and have rearranged it on the metal several times during the day to get good coverage. So, I have had a good start to my long weekend.

Tomorrow I am going to do some monoprinting using the gel. I also want to prepare a screen to do some improvisational screen printing - another thing on my list. Oh, and I want to dye up some more fabrics. Then Monday, I am determined to actually make something from my newly generated stash - even if it is just a postcard, or a journal quilt - I won't go to bed until I have something. I have decided I have to be more focussed on just producing work, and not simply messing about. Oh dear - not enough hours in the day - especially when work interferes! Although, I regularly read Lisa Call's blog, and that woman is totally amazing. She has a full time job, and children at home (mine are big), and she still manages to put in 30 hours or more a week in her studio - does she ever sleep, I wonder???