Sunday, January 04, 2009

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

9 comments:

komodori said...

What would happen if you shadow-outlined the edges of the heart to make it pop back out?
Hope you are having a great year---hasn't it seemed like we've had a dozen weekends in just his past fortnight?
XR

Gerrie said...

I think I would like to stencil the inverse of the cutout. Do you know what I mean? I liked the gold, by the way. I am going to steal this. Better yet, please send me the pattern! I got talked into teaching a valentine fiber collage class as part of my show at the cathedral!!

Barbara said...

I love your idea to use the hearts for your valentines. My favorite print is the last one on the smooshed monoprint.

Peace!

Jeannie said...

What would happen if you flipped the stencil onto fabric before it was dry? I like Gerrie's idea about the inverse - so that the heart would be colored and the backgroung white. Pretty, pretty valentines! Keep having fun! Cheers.

Eva Hagbjärn said...

Lovely hearts. Even though I don't understand what you are doing, I do understand that it's a lot of work behind the hearts ;-)
I like the last picture.

Kram Eva

Carol said...

Beautiful stencils, I think they all look great. What a good idea to get your inspiration from that lovely pin.

Eva said...

Your printing technique is great. Simple and with a strong effect. Looking forward to see more!

Joyce said...

Beautiful! I'm sure you'll come up with more ideas for these cute little hearts.

Elizabeth said...

I think that your stencil is wonderful!! I don't thinkthat you should give up on it so quickly!! What about trying the stenciling on a colored fabric- or use metallic paints- Or add some spry glitter- just play with it and push it some more!! I think that the stencil is a great start!!
looks like lots of fun!!
Hugs!
Elizabeth