How to make a stamp

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Here are some photos of the scarves that I finished last week and a short how-to on stamp making.


Making a stamp for silk resist is very easy and requires only an idea, a piece of plexiglass, a plexiglass cutter (both should be available at your local hardware store), a sheet of fun foam and some glue - I use either super glue or rubber cement.

Your design should be fairly simple and read well as either positive or negative space. Transfer your design to the fun foam and cut it out with scissors. Scissors will create a smooth beveled edge that works well for gluing and stamping. If you have multiple shapes within your design, it is a good idea to draw a map of pieces onto your plexiglass with a sharpie marker so that you know where each small element is supposed to go once you start gluing. Use the plexiglass cutter to cut the plastic to the appropriate size for your stamp.

If you use super glue, apply tiny dots of glue at 1/8 inch intervals to the back of the fun foam and quickly stick the pieces onto the plexiglass. These should stick for just about forever. Try not to get your fingers too involved, you don't want to wear your new stamp all day.

Rubber cement allows for some adjustments after placement and is good for the accident prone. Apply a thin layer of glue to the plexiglass and to the fun foam. Allow it to dry until it is tacky on both surfaces and then press the foam pieces frimly onto the plexiglass. Lay the assembled stamp flat and place a heavy book on top for about an hour. This results in a sturdy stamp that can be removed in case you want to re-position the pieces or use the piece of plexiglass for something else.

Where to get a design motif?

Sometimes my design ideas come from my own drawings, sometimes they come from other design sources.

These carnation blossoms are two of my favorite stamps.


They are from a small study of carnation buds and blossoms I did about 8 years ago.
















I found the spear-like buds very intriguing so I made a stamp of that simple design and used it for a couple of years. then I wanted to add some variety to the designs I was stamping with that motif and created the blossom stamp to co-ordinate with it. They have ben very successful. I can create rigid, static upright motifs with these stamps or use them as a garden element, adding fern patterns, birds, insects or my signature moon stamp.



These fuschia blossoms were created in a similar fashion. I did a quick setch of a friend's hanging basket and later translated that into a set of fuschia blossom and bud stamps. These ae wonderful bcause in order to make the design read corectly, I stamp the flowers on, allow them to dry and then draw in stems and leaves with my fine line applicatr after the scarf is in the stretcher frame. This creates a scarf that can be painted in a groovy, 1970's stained glass window look.

The swallow image originated from a one of Graham Leslie McCallum's source books. I like these books because they are full of simple B&W line drawings of relatively simple design motifs. I like other souce books, too, but I find that I am often distracted & overwhelmed by the addition of colors or including complete designs on the page instead of simple elements.













I made the first stamp from a line drawing inspired by two or three of the swallow images in the book. I wanted another swallow, slightly larger and swooping in the opposite direction, so I simply traced the first foam swallow onto another piece of foam before gluing it to the plexiglass.

You can also get nice stamps at Michaels' and other shops that sell foam home decor and kid's craft stamps.
One your stamps are made, use a foam brush to apply Elmers School Glue Gel, diluted 2 to 1 with water and stamp the designs on the silk. Allow the resist to dry, stretch the silk and paint. Do not paint over the resisted image, as the glue is water soluble and will break down.

When the scarf is painted, cured and washed, you can embellish the resist design with textile paint or ink. I like Dahler Rowney's Acrylic inks - they are supple and shimmering and flow nicely onto the silk.

Wash the stamp with warm water after each use and allow to dry before storing it away and it will last for many years. You can also use the stamp for paper creations, for stamping paint or thickened inks to fabric or even for home decor.

Recent work

9:03 AM Posted In , , , , , Edit This 4 Comments »
Finally some photos! Here are pics of three scarves I painted this weekend.


I had a deadline getting them out and my house was full of static this weekend so I didn't get a chance to get big shots of them - but here are some details.

The
first 3 photos are of two blossom scarves in blue - a very pale blue with subtle ripple lines for one and a slightly bolder palette for the second. these were pleasant and peaceful to paint. Very simple, no complicated blends or fussy resists. The blossoms have been accented with a pearlescent white textile paint on one side to add some texture and extra shimmer to the silk










The next 5 photos are of a Color Theory scarf - probably the best one of my career so far. I love to blend colors on silk and the Color Theory scarves allow me to really play with that process.





I start with a blank white scarf, doodle on some swirley lines, including lots of spirals, and a few circles and other closed shapes. I fill my palette with bright primary and secondary colors and start painting. Using lots of sumi brushes (one for oranges, one for purples, one for greens, one for just yellow - you get the pictue) to avoid mud, I begin at one end and apply pure washes of color along the resist lines that shift from one hue to the next, following the full spectrum of my dyes.

I have to pay attention to the curves, spirals and open spaces around the area I am painting so that I can plan to have a complimetary color on the other side of the resist line.








Spirals are really excellent as the color blend happens so beautifully and naturally within the curve. A sumi brush already loaded with magenta, dipped into yellow and brushed along the curve of a spiral will lay out a gorgeous blend beginning with pure yellow, becoming yellow orange - orange and then finaly a bright, warm magenta. It's like magic.


















Finally, Molly has been bitten by the Chicken Scratch bug. She worked up a few samples that really impressed me. She's so cool - she was able to take fairly rigid stitch structure and morph it into something that is still recognizeable as Chicken Scratch but is also new and inventive.

mono-printing samples and we were just going to paint, right???

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Lots of changes (good and bad) in the last couple of weeks around here. We were able to enjoy lots of time this week with my nephew, D, who is a year older than my little guy. They had a great time but my nephew is sad because his maternal gramma, Mary, passed away from liver cancer last Sunday. She was a vibrant and outgoing woman who had beaten cancer two or three times before this last recurrance and it has been rough for D to see her weaken so quickly. Prayers for Mary's extended family and especially my brother, sister-in-law and nephew would be appreciated. They shared a home with gramma Mary for the last several years as her health became a bit more chancy.

But then last night I got some great news - my brother-in-law and his sweet wife had their first baby yesterday. It is a beautiful little boy and I can't wait to go down to visit and get my hands on him. However, this addition severely disrupts my balance of nieces to nephews. I have only 4 nieces and now I have 7 nephews. Someone in the family had better step up
and start producing more girls!







Most of you probably want to
see photos of my experiments with mono-printing. Well, here they are. I mostly followed the instructions in Quilting Arts, as mentioned in an earlier post. I used Procion chartruce, bright green, brilliant blue, teal and midnight blue on both sheer organza and white cotton muslin. I wasn't really pleased with my current results but here are 2 things I intend to try next time:

- Take time to find and/or create some interesting resists. I only had string to work with because there were no leaves here last week and I was too eager to take time to cut out paper resists. I found that if string is thick enough to act as a resist, it leaves a fuzzy impression because it is not flat enough to allow good contact with the plate. Scraping some of the dye away with my fingernail left a crisp and interesting deign but my fingertips are still purple.

- Get some different sponge rollers. I ordered some from Dick Blick that I think my 3 year old will love. They have a very open texture and would be great for tempera on paper but left a
very grainy texture on the printing plate. Watering down the dye paste and adding a bit of dish soap to the recipe might help with that, but I think most of it was the roller. A recent trip to Home Depot revealed a wide array of locally available paint roller thingies - including some very smooth and small foam trim rollers. I'm going to get some of those.

I can see that this could become a valuable technique. If I had taken the time to create some interesting resists I could be working with some fun quilted, embroidered and embellished layers right now. Maybe next week.

Now I also want to try screen printing with dye paste. I've been intimidated to try screen printing because I was afraid that it would be very expensive and complicated. Technology is getting more user friendly, though so I may try that soon.


Oh, BTW, my samples are not ironed because I couldn't get to the ironing board.
Which brings me to another issue. . . . We were just going to paint, right?

Well, we discovered that we couldn't easily scrape paint off the old woodwork without having serious lead issues. As we stood around looking at the room and worrying about what to do, my son ran through the front door and slammed it shut. It made an interesting noise, like plaster falling down inside the wall. Investigation of the noise led to the discovery that, indeed, plaster was falling down behind the door casing which was actually coming off the wall all on its own. All of the woodwork came off surprisingly easily. It is now all in the barn in the process of being chemically stripped.

Further contemplation determined that it would make the most sense to replace the two outer homasote walls and the ceiling now while the woodwork is already off. Removal of the ceiling revealed that we still have knob and tubing wiring in some parts of the house. From what is exposed, we cannot determine where the knob and tubing comes from nor where it goes. It is a great mystery.


Ceiling removal also revealed that a weight bearing wall was removed from the middle of the living room at some point and never replaced or shored up with an alternative. Also, a joist was sawn through to allow installation of a heating duct from the furnace to the upstairs. Hot air has never come from this duct in all the years we have lived here. Removal of the duct revealed that this is because the duct had a
big gap between two sections, allowing the hot air to just blow around between the walls. Removal of the duct also revealed a rotting joist and planking under what is left of the original, incredibly heavy, brick chimney.

We stared at the ceiling for many long moments. We began to wish that we had just left the room alone or given the kids some cans of spray paint. We looked at each other for many long moments.

I said "It would be a lot easier to make these decisions if we were drunk." My husband laughed like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.












Unfortunately, we don't drink. All decisions are on hold.

Round Robin Fabrics

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I've recently finished and mailed two pieces of fabric for the Complex Cloth Round Robin that I am participating in. This Round Robin is being hosted by Von Biggs over at the Complex Cloth forums. There are 7 of us in each Round Robin Group. My group is working in cotton. Each participant started with one yard of high quality cotton fabric, added one layer of dye to the fabric and sent it on to the next person on the list. When my original fabric comes back, it will have been altered by 6 more people. Folks have been posting photos as they go along on the Complex Cloth forum and it is fun to watch how each piece gets altered.

I added a 3rd layer of dye to a yard of fabric that had soft, pale yellow and blue stripes. I painted circles on the fabric with Speedball drawing fluid, allowed them to dry and then laid the fabric on a shower curtain and painted coral pink dye all over with a sponge brush. Then I mixed some fire red dye and painted more circles around and/or inside the resisted circles. I had never used drawing fluid as a resist before as I was afraid that it might stain the fabric. In Jane Dunnewold's book, Complex Cloth, she mentions that drawing fluid as a resist had once stained a length of silk noil. However, I felt safe using it on this piece because the existing blue dye was the same color as the drawing fluid; I felt confident that it would look intentional if it stained. There was some icky looking color mixing going on between the fire red and the drawing fluid while the fabric batched, but it all washed out just fine. I was surprised at how well the drawing fluid worked as a resist considering how much it appeared to bleed while batching. Placing the fabric on a shower curtain resulted in having some interesting bleed lines where the plastic carried the dye over into other areas of the fabric. Some people would hate that but I liked it. So one thing I've learned in this RR is that I can use drawing fluid as a sturdy resist on cotton. I generally use Elmer's school glue gel as a resist for silk painting, but that does not hold up well to really wet work on heavier fabric.

For the second fabric I just accordion folded the picece into a little packet and discharged the edges with bleach. Frankly, I didn't want to do anything to this piece of fabric and I'm disappointed with what I did do. I guess that I should have been bolder, but in my world that piece would have been considered done when it got to me. I hope that the next person who gets it does not feel as stumped as I did! I've tried to photograph this length of fabric in a way that will do justice to all of the incredible things going on with colors and discharging/overdyeing, but I'm stumped. You'll just have to take my word for it - this is one beautiful piece of fabric.

I need to get started with some screen printing techniques. I think if I had some more tools in my studio, I would not have been so intimidated. My piece of fabric has been to 4 people and the last person added some
silk screened Emily Dickinson text to the piece. The effect is subtle compared to the larger patterns happening with the dye but it is bold enough to stand out from the background.
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