Thursday, August 5, 2010

Play Day Pictures--Flour-Paste Resist

These pictures are my very first effort at flour-paste resist. I watched a demonstration by Jane Dunnewold on Quilting Arts TV and loosely followed her directions. She suggested using a ratio of half flour to half water for the flour mixture. I thought hers looked really thick. I read a blog post by Terry Jarrard-Dimond where she mixed hers to be a little more runny. So...I decided to go with the less thick concoction. I think that was a mistake for me.

The first two photos are of the last two pieces I did. I had added more flour to the mixture to make it thicker. I like the looks of these better.
You can see some of the marks I made in the flour resist before it dried. I have checkerboards (top/bottom) and swirls, letters, and lines. I also crunched this one up just a little before adding the paint, so the cracks would be more evident.

For this next piece of cloth, I thought I'd see what it would do if I didn't crunch it up at all. I wanted my marks to show more. As a matter of fact, I wrote a Washington Irving poem on this one. It was the poem that was read at my mother's funeral in June. (I'm still working through that.)
I really like the way it blurs some of the words yet leaves some of them readable. It is almost like a "secret" message. Can you read it?

The next two pieces were done first. I really crunched them up (too much probably), because I thought I wanted a lot of crackling. I think between the crunching up of the fabric and the thinness of the resist that too much paint came through to the fabric. I do think I can use them; they aren't total losses.
Lighting is an amazing thing. These two pieces are the same color. When I took the pictures, I couldn't get the flash to go off on one of them. (I don't remember which one.) That is why the color looks so different.

I really had fun with this and definitely will be doing more of it. I'm going to try other colors or maybe a combination of colors the next time. I can't believe what a mess I made when I did it, but that was part of the fun.

8 comments:

Stephanie Hughes said...

really love this! It looks fun and it gave you a great result. Love your art quilt, self portrait. I have always wanted to make one and don't know where to start. Steph

LuAnn said...

Hi Beth I just googled something like Indiana quilt blogs, and ended up on your blog. As I scrolled through I saw the photo of my green Nearly Insane quilt from the Bloomington Show. That is the first time I'd ever hung a quilt in a show anywhere. I had that one plus another that had 964 - 1 1/2" finished nine patches. That one got a judge's recognition ribbon. I love your art quilt - looks like fun.

kathy loomis said...

I think all these samples look good enough to eat. The challenge is what to do with them -- please show us what happens next!

Quilter Beth said...

Thanks SO much for the positive comments. It is fun to see what people think about the things I'm doing. It makes me want to do more. It is just TOO much fun.

Stephanie...what is stopping you? Start that self-portrait...you can do it. Don't let the "starting" stop you. I did that for a long time. I'd love to see what you come up with.

LuAnn...hope to see more of your work. Will you have anything in the next Bloomington show (or do you know yet)?

Kathy...I'm thinking I might use some of these when I learn how to dye fabric. I can't wait to play with them, though.

k.somerville said...

oh wow I really love the poetry resist. Do you stitch around that? If you dye over that will the lettering resist? can't wait to see more Beth.

Julie said...

Beth, I think I'll try this technique. It will be really useful for me to have some textural fabrics on hand for when I do my pictoral quilts. Will have to find some instructions online.

Karen S said...

I love this cloth -- I have all the stuff -- you've inspired me to get busy and try it!

LuAnn said...

Hi Beth I'm not sure if I'll put anything in the Bloomington Show this time. A couple friends and I decided to put 2 quilts each in the show. It's kind of interesting to see what comments the judge's make on your work. It still makes me smile when I think of scrolling through your blog and finding my Nearly Insane quilt there. Thanks for writing.