Liquitex Inks, Derwent Inktense Pencils & Author Ambassadors

The publisher of my first book, C&T Publishing, is now handling more art quilting supplies.  They asked several months ago if any of their authors would be interested in being an "Author Ambassador".  I happily jumped into the experiment with enthusiasm. (I do have trouble sitting on my hands at meetings!)  A package soon arrived in the mail containing a very generous and exciting bundle of goodies.  Liquitex Inks in primary colors, a selection of Derwent Inktense Pencils, some fabric medium and some Liquitex paints.  Enough to make someone like me salivate and instantly start hatching new ideas. 

I set out to play with the products and to sketch out what I wanted to produce.  I wanted to try the inks since I had not used them before.  I've used lots of fabric paints, but not inks.  So I tried painting with the inks, using a quill pen with the inks, using a rubber stamp and a brayer with the inks, darkening areas with the Inktense pencils, and just generally played around happily.  Then I drew out my design on paper, put it on my tracing surface and got going with the inks and the real thing.  It turned out beautifully.  I was really pleased with the way the inks performed, both as a color medium, and as a resist when a second coat was added.  The Inktense Pencils were really wonderful.  They colored in spaces, they darkened lines, they shaded cheeks.....all depending on the wetness and size of the paintbrush used.  In essence, I LOVED the products. 

And then the inevitable (at least in my life) happened.  I was beading away on a finished piece and spilled a glass of red wine on it. (There's a lesson in here......is it about drinking wine while beading?  Is it about drinking white instead of  red wine?  Those are the only two options I'll consider OK?)  Since the project was done on a very sensitive fabric, it lost it's glamour when it was rinsed, and in the end became unusable.....except perhaps as bits cut up and add to an Art Trading Card.  Not to be deterred, I started over, albeit too late for my deadline by now! But, now it's finished.  This project was done on polyester satin, with Liquitex Inks, Liquitex Fabric Medium and Derwent Inktense pencils......and a lot of hand beading.  I'm not as happy with it as I was with the first one, but in the end I learned more about the product by trying to reproduce what I had done on the first round!  I will definitely be using the products again, AND ordering more from C&T! 

And this project, done with the same supplies except on plain muslin with the polyester satin background is one I consider to be successful.  I love the intensity of the color achieved on muslin.  The freckles are done by using very watered down ink on the Fast-2-Fuse before pressing the layers together.  I was happy with where they fell in the composition.  This is an idea I'd like to work on some more and into a bigger piece I think! 

Beaded Tower Book

If  by any stretch of impossibility, you are a fibre artist and haven’t connected with Maggie Grey in the UK, you need to do so. She has a number of books in print and they are all unusual techniques and fabulous inspiration. http://www.workshopontheweb.com/ or on her blog, http://magstitch.blogspot.com/


With the purchase of her book “Textile Translations”, published by D4Daisy there are on-line lessons offered for an extra project.
http://www.d4daisy.com/maggiete.htm 

I started this one last spring and had a lot of fun with it. The faces and “head dresses” draped around them are wet paper, applied to Timtex,
 http://www.ctpub.com/showproducts.cfm?WPCID=1117 and then painted over with gesso. From there I inked, painted and dyed until I was satisfied with the shading. I was unable to make the technique offered by Maggie Grey work….probably because our inks are not the same as those produced in the UK. But with a little bit of experimentation and a great amount of serendipity, the project came to life.

The best part was the beading. I sat with my husband watching TV and started beading. It went well. I beaded evening after evening, going from one piece to another. I would do something to one piece and then decide the other needed more and then….well, you get the picture.

I had originally planned to have fabric pages with the verses applied with Steam A Seam Lite, a fusible stabilizer which works with fabric or paper, but the fabric didn’t work as intended so I switched to decorative papers. These worked well. They are stitched together, and then “bound” to the cover so that they ruffle nicely when the book is standing. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out.

As always, the next one will be the best one, but I sure had fun playing with this one!

Absorbed in Beading

Have you seen the book by Maggie Grey called "Textile Translations"? It is fantastic. Not only is the book content wonderful, but there is the added bonus of free classes on-line. I'm working on the first of three and this is a portion of the project. I have dropped my vegetables for a few days and have been completely absorbed in beading this project. It is amazing how something that didn't look great becomes intriquing with the addition of embellishments. I've really been enjoying this, to the point of ignoring other things I should be doing! The only trouble is where to stop! I strongly suggest anyone interest in textile art/mixed media/surface design get this book. It is SO much information and incredibly inspiring.