Hard to Resist
It’s hard to resist playing with glue.
And glue makes a pretty good resist.
In the studio now I am juggling a few large projects – and mulling the beginning of a new body of work. In the meantime, I need to create some fabric for the large project that will use traditional Americana-themed images for social commentary.
Hence, red, white and blue and some stars.
(The methods can be used for any kind of imagery and palette.)
Start with supplies.
The resist material will be Elmer’s washable school glue. The image will be created with a hand-cut stencil – in this case, random five-pointed stars. (I cut it with a hand-held razor blade using a manila file folder for the material.) The glue will be distributed across the stencil with a foam paint roller. The paper plate will serve as a “paint tray” for the roller. I will pour the glue in the plate and roll the roller through it to load it up with glue. (My plate being blue is irrelevant. That’s just old dried acrylic paint; I am re-using this disposable plate.)
When the stars were printed in glue on the white fabric, they were almost invisible.
I stenciled one section of the fabric then moved my stencil to the next empty spot. There will be some randomness to this pattern.
After the glue dried, I overpainted the fabric in three different colors. I will cut these apart and use them for different sections. . (What this picture shows is the paint applied over the glue stars. I had not washed off the glue resist yet. The star shapes barely show through.)
After the glue dries, the painted fabric goes in a bucket of warm water to loosen up the glue. . (I leave it in there for an hour or so.)
Then the glue wipes off easily with a soft rag. Finish it off with a good hard washing from the garden hose.
I think the fabric I created is interesting. It is not perfect as a commercially manufactured fabric would be. That’s A-OK with me.
But, if a consistent block out is important for your project, what will make that happen is a really good solid coat of the glue. Because I used a well-worn foam roller, hard in spots and soft in others, my glue had some thick-and-thin on the fabric. A little bit of the overpainted color seeped through the thin spots. Using a newer foam roller and concentrating on a thick coat of glue (you can hit it twice) would solve this.
As always, I am intrigued and pleased to use simple, lo-tech methods to create large, complex works. It’s just part of how I like to create.
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Class reminder:
Just a reminder: In June I am teaching a zoom class on “composition.” It is being sponsored by a region of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) but is open for attendance by both SAQA members and SAQA non-members.
I like this class. I’ve worked to have it help participants think about the necessary step that comes between the idea and the working methods. I hope students will come away with some inspiration and some specific methods to try.
Let me know if you have any questions. You can register and pay here:
REGISTER:
https://saqa.app.neoncrm.com/event.jsp?event=2445&
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For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating
Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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