Wendy O'Brien: mixed media/ fibre art: Dying and Printing Part 1 and a Drive-by

Seeing as I have time off from working, I'm taking the time to do a little fooling around with dying and printing on fabric and paper. I'll save the paper for another post. First off is snow dying, yes we still have some, although this was done awhile ago.

I first washed my fabric and then soaked it in washing soda over night so that the colours would remain bright. In the morning I wrung them out and put them in the bottom of a plastic bucket. I tried 4 different types of fabric, this was by far the best, just plain 100% cotton. I packed the pail with snow and sprinkled Dylon cold water dyes in 3 colours on the top. I left it for 36 hours as it was taking a long time to melt on my cold basement floor. Afterward I rinsed the whole thing in cold water and rinsed again in salt water, let it hang to dry and here you have it. I think next time I would just do one piece and maybe a bit less snow. I would also like to try it with ice, for a different effect.

This next one is rusting the fabric. fortunately I live on an old farm which gives me access to alot of rusty old junk. The picture has actually bleached out alot of the overall colour, it is a pretty consisted rusty colour with some intensity. This time I tore up some rarely used white bedsheets for the trial runs. I had done rusting before but tackled this a little differently. I rolled up lengths of fabric with rusty junk as I rolled it up. I did 4 lengths. then I put them all in a large clear plastic bag like you use for putting your leaves in. I poured a healthy amount of vinegar on top and closed up the bag. After a couple of days I turned the bag over and put in a bit more vinegar. I got some wonderful prints. I rinsed it by hand in a bucket of salty water and then machine washed it and hung to dry.

We had some frozen blueberries in the freezer that were starting to signs of being in the freezer just a little too long and although not wizened definitely looked like they were drying out. Zip-lock plastic doesn't keep things infinitely fresh. So I wet another length of fabric and sprinkled blueberries as I rolled the fabric, then re rolled the whole thing in a green plastic garbage bag, I was out of the clear ones which I like so you can see what's going on. After that I stamped on the whole parcel and walked away for a couple of days. This is what I got. Again the photo looks sort of washed out. I think what I might do next with this piece is to use fabric markers and actually draw on some branches of blueberries in the sots where the berries are most visible.

Again this is bleached out, maybe I need to take the photos outside in some sun instead of using the flash. that is if the sun ever shines. Grey old winter is still hanging on here in southwestern Ontario.
this one was with instant coffee . the whole cloth was dyed, then spread out on plastic ,then I sprinkled extra crystals on the wet cloth. I don't drink the stuff, but my husband is going to wonder what is happening with it.

The next three are using permanent marker and then spraying it with rubbing achol. I think I will have to invest in some broad tip markers so it doesn't require me to colour everything in and because things like the dark blue happened where it left lines still.

The following 2 are printed but in different ways. The first one with the birds was using gesso stamped through a stencil and left to dry and cure. After which I machine washed the fabric which leaves You with a, old worn look. The bottom one is a simple block print made with cutting out craft foam shapes and gluing them to a block of wood with a heavy duty glue

OK, now the drive-by part. I went with a friend yesterday to see the "Paint Ontario" exhibit at the Lampton Museum. We drove through a little village named Dashwood, famous for making Dashwood Windows and Doors. I'm going to have to back when things have a bit of greenery and wander around to take more photos because there are some great old buildings in varying stated of disrepair. Great inspiration. Here are a few quick photos I took on the way home.