Saturday, June 27, 2009

Stamping with Rayna

I joined a workshop in one of my yahoo groups (A.R.T.) based on Rayna Gillman’s book, Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth.

For the first lesson, we’re stamping with household items. I didn’t branch out as much as I could have—I wanted to cut up a pool noodle and stamp with that, look for some interesting textured items around the house to stamp with, and find or make some stencils, but I just haven’t had the energy. I have quite a few hand-carved and hand-made stamps, so most of these pieces were stamped with those.

This piece was stamped with opaque fabric paint and pieces of Styrofoam plates that I cut up and drew into with a stylus:

carved_foam_plate

This is a piece of painted fabric, stamped with a leaf pattern carved into a rubber eraser:

carved_leaf_stamp

Here’s a piece of painted fabric stamped with a kid’s foam beads glued to a wood base:

foam_bead_stamp

This one is painted fabric, stamped with strips of plumber’s gasket glued to a wood base (ok, I’ll admit I cheated with this one; I actually created it a while back, but I think it’s a good example of interesting effects with very simple stamps):

gasket_stamp

Here’s a technique I learned in Lyric Kinard’s Playing with Paint class at QU; the “stamp” is a pear, cut in half and dried on paper towels, then coated with fabric paint:

stamped_pears

And finally, this fabric-painted piece was stamped with a store-bought swirl stamp, then stamped with that rubbery grid-like shelf liner material. I added some hand-painted accents both over and around the stamping. I really like this piece:

stamped_swirl_flowers

Now, as always, I need to figure out what to do with these pieces of fabric, other than just folding them up and stuffing them into a drawer. I’m thinking I should start working with a pre-defined color scheme for projects like this, so at least everything coordinates and can be used together in a larger piece.

9 comments:

Cathy Spivey Mendola said...

I really love these examples. They're all great but I think my fave is the first one. Maybe because the black background really sets off the color and I love the pattern.
The last one is great too. Love the layering of the paints and stamps.
Your idea to maybe work in a color scheme so you can combine them in a larger piece sounds like a great idea.
Hope you're starting to feel better.
cathy
p.s. love your new profile pic.

Michele/TextileTraveler said...

Thank you, Cathy. I really like that first one, too. Those are the Sorbet paints (Sherrill's Sorbets?)--they are very opaque and I love the sherbet colors against black.

Norma Schlager said...

Well, I was going to say that I liked the first one best, and I still do. Hard to think that you achieved it with a Styrofoam plate. The colors are terrific.

Judy Alexander said...

I have Rayna's book and I love it. It looks like you are having fun!

Michi Michaelson, Orange County, CA said...

Hi Michele!
These pieces are AWESOME!!!! Guess what? CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You have been nominated for a Blog Award!!! Please see my blog for more details!!!!

Jen said...

I have Rayna's book too, but haven't gotten into it yet. I especially love that first piece. Jen

Judy Alexander said...

Michelle, I gave you a blog award. You can check it out on my blog.

Judy

Roberta Ranney said...

Great work! I'm particularly taken with the third one - the reds and greens rock. To me, all it needs is some quilting and it is done. I was fortunate enough to take one of Rayna's classes but, like you, find it difficult to use the fabric. I'll keep "tuning in" to see what you come up with.

NEEDLEWINGS said...

OH what lovely fabrics! If you don't find a use, you can always ship them my way. lol I agree, the last one is my favorite too!