Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Design Mode

I seem to be in "design mode" as of late. My needle has been idle but my pencil has been busy. A while back, I showed this quilt that I designed, painted and stitched.


Every time I walk by it, I see some things I would have liked to have done differently...........so I decided to do a little "re-designing". The changes are subtle but I like this version much better.
I've named it "Echo"



Thursday, August 14, 2014

Colour Pencil on Fabric

Earlier, I showed how I had begun colouring in my design which I transferred to fabric. Here is the result.


To achieve that blended multicoured look, I used 3 pencils. Working in small sections I added a bit of the blue


then some green


followed by the yellow. 


Once all 3 colours were applied, I simply continued to build the layers until the desired intensity was achieved.  As the sections were completed, I lightly brushed textile medium over the pencil to seal the colour. I tried a few different brands and found that for this project, the one I liked best was  Folk Art Textile Medium made by Plaid.

Even though this is not the sort of technique that would be used for a project that would be washed regularly, I was curious to see if it could hold up to a gentle wash. On a scrap of the same fabric, I drew and coloured with the same supplies. I cut the pieces in half, marked "wash" on the bits that would be tested.  Submerged into cool, soapy water, agitated a bit, a short soak, then rinsed.


 I placed the bits side by side once dry and as you can see, the colour remained vibrant.






Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Building on an idea

What began during a doodle session, grew into a design with potential for use in a variety of ways. I have decided to "test" it out in the form of  a mini whole cloth.
Since I really had only drawn 1/4 of the overall design, I first needed to make copies, which were also enlarged, then trimmed and taped together to form the complete design.

roughly 20" square

Next, it was traced onto a piece of pre-washed, 100% cotton


I am keeping the process super simple, plain old colour pencil is what I am using to bring the design lines to life. In order to mitigate the possibility of smudging the tracing, I am keeping most of the traced fabric folded up as I work and only exposing as much area as needed at a time.


Randomly laying in the colour using 1 pencil each, in Blue, Green and Yellow, then blending. The colour will later be sealed with a textile medium  ( I plan to do a couple of "tests" to see which brand I like best for this project)



 I will go into more details of this process as it progresses.

Copyright Jill Buckley