Tuesday, February 9, 2016

More Surface Design

We had another snowy day here where all plans were cancelled. It seems like February is making up for the mild winter we had up to now. So I did a little playing with surface design, mostly stamping.
These were very easy techniques and you may be very familiar with them, but maybe not, so I am showing them here.

This is a dense foam block, made specifically for this purpose. You heat the block either with a heat gun, which I do not have, or an iron. I covered the block with parchment paper then put a hot iron on it for several seconds, then immediately pressed the back onto some objects that have been placed on a hard surface. Of course this was buttons.


I used a red ink pad, the only one I had that wasn't dried up, so you will see red ink on all of these blocks. It was printed on light blue fabric. I think I want to make some note cards using this stamp.





On the other side of the block I used those big quilting pins with the big yellow heads.



I really liked these results. The first one was on turquoise fabric and the second on a mottled pastel print.

One of the cool things about these blocks is that you can reheat them and the impressions will disappear and you can do a different design.

I have some dense foam children's building books that can be used this way, too. However none of them give a very big surface, so I just did this one with paper clips.






I am trying to put together a quilt using one of the soy wax resist pieces I showed you last week so I did some more printing with that end in view.




Here I made a stamp by wrapping rubber bands onto a stamp with a wooden base. I've done this before and like the results. I brushed white acrylic paint onto the band with a foam brush.


You can see a bit of that piece I am working with. The greens are a great match. It was from my hand-dyed stash.



This was also made with a rubber band stamp, but I ran the bands vertically on a long oblong block. I was less happy with this one. I don't like the bright white blobs. They show up more in person.




This was done with bubble wrap. I paint the wrap with white paint and then press it down onto the fabric. I also tried using big bubble wrap, but that was not successful. I just got very indistinct blobs.




This is another one that I think will go with my piece. It is a color grabber sheet, the kind you put in the wash to grab any colors that might get onto your light colors. I try to remember to put one in the washing machine when I am washing my hand-dyes. I have a nice pile of them in many colors and I had two pinks that look good with my piece. I stamped them with a commercial "O" block.

Now I'm going to see how these pieces will work together. Stay tuned.

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

7 comments:

Shannon said...

This is great! I did not know about the heat up make your own stamps. How cool and especially that they can be reused. I'll have to look for some of this foam!

Heather Pregger said...

Beautiful textures! I have carved stamps, but haven't used the foam. I'll have to try it....

LA Paylor said...

does the foam smell when heated? I love the textures you achieved.
LeeAnna

Angela said...

Oh I love your prints!

Gwyned Trefethen said...

I learned so many new ideas from you to play with during my year of surface design. Thank you for sharing both the how and the results. Love the "pins" stamp. You achieved some outstanding texture. Is there a name for the dense foam blocks so I can be sure to get the right kind?

Margaret Cooter said...

These blocks and prints are instantly inspiring!

Vivien Zepf said...

Oh my gosh, I LOVE these! Wonderful, Norma!