A Little Q & A

For this pair of butterflies, I decided to experiment with the failed attempts at discharging fabric with the bleach pen.  These were the ones that I left the bleach on a bit too long, and when I rinsed it out, the image was difficult to make out.  I wanted to see what would happen if I added some colored pencil to the fabric to make the images a bit more recognizable.  The really light or white areas are places that were discharged and untouched.  Overall I did not like the way they turned out.  I think more needs to be done to make it more pleasing to me.  Perhaps adding some stitching will help.  I will revisit this later.

For this one I used a black permanent resist and did another cropped view of the butterfly's wings.  I really like doing the cropped view.  I also like the Dye-Na-Flow paints, but I have to prepare for the bleeds.

I decided to do some more "batik" inspired art--this time with some permanent colored resists that I had laying around.  The silver and gold ones reminded me of the metallic paint from Laurel Burch paintings, so I leaned in that direction for colors.  Since I didn't have to rinse out the resist, the Dye-Na-Flow paints I used are really vibrant.  I may decide to rinse them later to soften them up a little.  And like my other panels, I don't know what I am going to do with them.  

For this set of butterflies, I wanted to try a new technique:  discharging.  I used a readily available Clorox bleach pen to draw the images.  Here's what I learned: Don't leave the gel on for an extended period of time because it continues to spread and bleach outward.  Then you might not be able to tell what the image is.  I have a few of these! Some fabrics won't bleach no matter how long you leave the gel there.  I don't know if it was the finishes on the fabric or if the fabrics weren't actually 100% cotton, but I drew out some awesome images, let them sit and nothing happened!   Different colors discharge differently.  It's truly an experiment all around. I really liked the way the gel worked on my batik fabrics!  I don't know if it is because it was softer or what, but I could see the gel working immediately. I don't know what I am going to do with these panels.  Whatever I choose, I will post the finished products here!

I decided to do some glue gel resist batik techniques on these.  I have used this method before, but this time I decided to use Dye-Na-Flow paints to add color.  They are very similar to liquid watercolors except they are permanent on natural fabrics.   What I liked about the Dye-Na-Flow paints was that for this technique they were easier to use than regular textile paints.  They flowed a little to the glue gel boundaries, and I was able to fill in areas more quickly.  They were very vibrant on the fabric, and I worried that it would fade dramatically once I washed out the glue.  The fading was not dramatic, and I look forward to trying this out for other images! I have no idea what I am going to do with these panels.

Just three little fiber collages combining felt, fabric, and embellishments.  Hand stitching is so relaxing!  I like how they came out.  I have no idea what I am going to do with these, but I am sure I will cut them out and stitch them to something else.  I will update this post later with the finished results.