Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Mimosas Anyone?

Our weather has been unseasonably cool and yesterday morning I was enjoying those lower temps (and decreased humidity) while working in my studio. It is very pleasant to have all of the doors open and the sun pouring in! I was dyeing some tees and some yardage and decided to start a screen in order to do some deconstructed screen printing later in the week. I was following Rayna Gillman's instructions, as described in her book and also in her article in the latest edition of Quilting Arts magazine.

I wanted to use some of the smaller branches and leaves off of our Mimosa Tree, but here's the rub right off the bat: C HATES that tree and tries to destroy it every chance he gets (admittedly it is trashy, but I love the leaves and little powder puff blossoms). I was so pleased to find that one very persistent branch had indeed persevered over the summer, and there were some leaves for me to print! I mixed up my thickened pastes, squeegeed them across the leaf covered screen, lifted the screen and voila:

I loved the print that remained on the newspaper below the silkscreen when I picked up the screen. I wondered what would happen if I carefully laid a piece of soda soaked print cloth on top of that newspaper and brayered it. Well, here's the answer:

I was so excited that I grabbed more print cloth, threw it into my soda bucket, wrung it out, and brayered it on the newspaper and remaining print paste. I ended up with four fairly good pieces:


I'm thrilled with this result, as I now have even more prints of my mimosas!

Here is the screen drying with the mimosa leaves still attached



I hope to get back to it later in the week. But for now I'm on to other things, like that @#$%^&*! Making Tracks!


PEACE

10 comments:

Joyce said...

How lucky to get four beautiful prints when you only expected one. I don't know what a Mimosa is like but I love the leaves.

Karoda said...

at the title of this post, i thought "judy is sipping on mimosas while in her studio, yum!" but i'm still saying yum with the results you got on the fabric.

komodori said...

I love the mimosa prints---if you ever need more branches let me know. And while it is pretty I agree with Craig---it's an invasive weed.
My unsolicited opinion about Tracks is that it seems most successful when the tracks curl in slightly towards the center like the perspective of a road turning and disappearing---less so when the tracks work all the way across the piece. And (shriek!) have you tried tossing the background pieces down in a completely random pattern to see what the moment brings? Forgive my ever constant suggestions...XX

Gerrie said...

I agree with Karoda! I thought you were hitting the bottle!! Those prints are wonderful and I think it is genius that you thought to use the newspaper print.

Rayna said...

Ditto - mimosas sound lovely - maybe you should have a few to celebrate all those prints! Can't wait to see how the deconstructed pieces turn out.

Put the damn tracks away for a couple of weeks, Judy. You need a break.

Judy said...

Yes, I know: you ALL think that Losing Track has made me hit the bottle earlier in the day than usual! HA
Actually, I plan to do a wallhanging with the Mimosas Anyone? title. I cannot wait to see how the prints come out when I deconstruct the screen. And thank you Robin for offering more Mimosa leaves! It is a nasty tree, but the leaves are delightful, you've gotta admit!
Losing Track woke me at 4 this morning and I tossed and turned for over an hour trying to solve it. I think I have it now, and will work on it more over the next couple of days...and maybe then post a pic!
Poor Karoda is in a deep blue indigo funk and I'm headed in that direction! I hope this art quilt business comes easier over time, or with a few classes!
Thanks for all of the comments!

Vicki W said...

I actually love those trees too and so does DH. They grow everywhere here so Chris is going to plant one for me. I did some sun printing with mimosa leaves last year and it turned out great.

Eva Hagbjärn said...

I’m not familiar with Mimosa but I think it all looks very nice, and you seem to have a lot of fun when you are printing and dying =)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful prints, Judy! I think we're both at the same point in Rayna's book, as I did some experiments with leaf printing this weekend too... addictive stuff!

Judy Sall

Tiggy Rawling said...

Love the prints - what a great idea.

Look forward to seeing the deconstructed print.