Fifteen - The Heart of Art

I am slowly but surely working my way through Susan Sorrell's online Monoprinting class, which finished a few weeks ago, but due to other activities, I hadn't gotten around to completing. Today's lesson involved making stencils from freezer paper, ironing them to fabric, and then applying paint. My friend Molly gave me a wonderful Chico's pin for Christmas (I must add that she is the one to blame for introducing me to Chico's in the first place!) and I used that as inspiration for my stencil.

I first drew out my heart on an old manilla folder, cut out the stencil, triple-folded some freezer paper, drew around my cut lines, and then cut out several hearts using my exacto knife:

Here's one of the freezer paper templates ready to go:


and applied to my print cloth:


This is my first piece:
I like the color gradation going from light to dark. I am loving the stencil!

Here I've ironed the painted print cloth and removed my freezer paper:

I was feeling badly about removing the freezer paper and 'rejecting' it!

OK, moving right along, I decided to make it a heart of gold, so I painted over the entire piece of print cloth with some diluted gold textile paint

I don't think I like it as well as before...the contrast with the white heart was better, don't you agree?

So, as I said, I was feeling badly about rejecting those freezer paper hearts (and there are quite a few, and they were rather time-consuming to cut out, even if I cut them in triplicate), and I suddenly had a little brainstorm (better than a brain f___, wouldn't you agree?) and decided to use them for my Valentines this year. They are truly lovely:


Here is the last print that I did, combining some smooshing from last week's exercise:

PEACE