Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I'm melting..................

.......................fabric :)

Ever since I discovered that you could paint & melt tyvek & organza with a heat gun, I've wanted to create a piece incorporating these ideas. I haven't done anything with tyvek yet, but it's next in line after I finish with these organza pieces. The first four, I hand dyed bamboo fabric forest green. I then added foiling, which I might add, that I love!! I think it really gives the piece glitz. They were then painted with lumiere paint on top of the foil & then a layer of black organza, stitched over the top & then hit with a heat gun. Unfortunately, these photos don't show very well how "shiny & glitzy" the colors from the foiling are.

The photo below, you can see where I added the foil to the right side of the fabric.


As for the foiling technique & where to purchase the foil, please check out Lynda's (you may know her better as Purple Missus) & Carol's website Fibre In-Form. They have beautiful examples of their work where they have incorporated foiling techniques & they have free tutorials on this site as well & you can also purchase the foils on their site.

I'm working on two different challenges for Surface Design. One, I'm to use black, white & one other color to create a pc & the other is Burn, Slash, Manipulate, Distort & we're to use a couple of those techniques in a pc. The second challenge, I think I've achieved with the photos above. The first challenge I'm trying to work out in the photos below. I'm having a hard time using white since it's not a color that I'm used to working with.
The photo to the left, I used black fabric, a gun-metal color foil, white paint & then layered it with a rubber stamped blue-green organza. I stitched it down & then hit it with a heat gun. I like what happened with the foiling & the rubber stamped flowers on the organza. The foiling pattern on this piece has a flower-like appearance.


To get the foil to bond to the fabric, you need to use something like wonder under, but for some reason, I had problems with the foil bonding to the fabric, so I tried Misty Fuse & it worked wonderfully!! You know how with Misty Fuse that it has a web-like appearance? When I placed the foil over the Misty Fuse & hit it with an iron & pulled the film back, the foil bonded only in the "webbed" areas & it gave a spider weblike appearance, it looked so fine & delicate. I didn't realize until after I hit the piece with a heat gun & the organza melted away, exposing the foiling that the pattern of the foiling had a flower-like appearance.


The photo above, on the right, just doesn't do it for me. Even though, I used a copper foil for my "other color" it just really appears, blah.
I'm not sure what I think about the piece below. I wanted to see what would happen with using a colored background (hand dyed bamboo-turquoise) & not using any foiling. I started with the turquoise fabric, painted it a lumiere metallic white, layering with a black organza, stitching it down & then hitting it with a heat gun. The turquoise seemed so bright, I went back in with a navy lumiere paint to tone it down a little bit. I'm not sure piece is done yet?

3 comments:

Michelle said...

I really like what you are coming up with! I think the raw singed edge look of the first four and last pic - it would be nice if you maintained that through to the finished piece. Keep at it - can't wait to see where this leads!!

Joanna said...

These are great! Glad you are enjoying your experiments. Just lovely. I'm sure you'll come to a decision about if the piece is done...you could try embelllishing in some manor or just flip through some books for inspiration. I always find Jan and Jeans books inspiring.

Purple Missus said...

Thanks for the mention Tracy :)
Your organza and foil pieces look really good, although as you say they probably look even better for real - photographs just don't like shiny bits.
I love melting too for some reason I find it very theraputic - I wonder what that says about me *LOL* Sometimes though I just get carried away and burn far more than is necessary :))
I go with what Joanna said - the Jan&Jean books are excellent and if you don't like your piece as a whole, cut it up and use it in with something else.