Author Archives: Colleen Kole

Color Days: Shades of Blue

I started out a bit slow yesterday making silly mistakes. After not dyeing all winter, I had a bit of re-arranging to do and I wanted to make a list of what colors I really needed to dye. Since I had been using blue like it was the new black all winter, blue was the color of the day.

Not as hot as Monday but a beautiful day to dye some fabrics and let it dry on the line.

Great texture on this linen. It is my new favorite to dye and I am saving these pieces for some hand stitching this summer.

Also took some time to set up some screens to try de-constructed screen printing that I never had a chance to try at my class secondary to the high humidity. Hopefully today but now must rinse out 15 yards of blues.

I wil let you know how it turns out.

Be creative, my friends!

Making Bargains

I am making a bargain with myself. I know there is vacuuming to be done, a garden that grows out of control and many errands that need to be done. Which I will do AFTER I make myself a print surface and mix up some dyes and print paste. I worked all weekend and want to squeeze in some fabric dyeing in the middle of the last week of school and the sunshine. I will do the other things after I do this. :):)

I will let you know how it turns out. I need to scrounge around for the other table.

Be creative, my friends!

Finally, the Fabrics

I kept waiting for a brighter day to take pictures of my fabrics I made last week but the rain just kept coming. So last night, in some very bad lighting, I took pictures just so I could remember all the processes we covered.

Some are really bad and not to be shown. I took it one layer too far or some of the colors bled into the other areas… but the fun of splashing all that color over a white piece of fabric was amazing. So here we go. I used a yard of fabric for each piece so that is a lot of dye and print paste.

Soy wax resist using a large paint brush on cotton. The small tools to apply wax were in big demand so I went big. I was worried about washing it out when I had so much soy on there but it was easy after I soaked it in hot water.

More soy wax resist on linen. I ended up loving working on linen as it accepts the dye so well and wished I would have brought more of it.

Masking tape on a silk screen and then print paste with dyes applied through it . The big squeeze bottles full of color were so much fun. I felt like a kid in the candy shop and I had been given ten bucks instead of a quarter to spend.

Dry brushing with the liquid dyes.

Monoprinting on one of my small plexiglass pieces I brought. This blue piece took me a long time and then I don’t enjoy the blue color.

The orange piece above is just trying out different things to obtain texture.

This is a section of a large piece of fabric that I worked on for a few days waiting and batching in between processes. And then trying different marks on different areas. I think it has about five layers on it and I even worked it from the back. I was looking to obtain really saturated colors and now I know how. You can see from the close up how much bleed I was getting from the masking tape. I wouldn’t do such a rigid thing next time. I might go back to it and make the neon yellow lines a different color. Or cut it up and use it for something else. (But that’s the whole point of trying to make compositional cloth-it is the composition.)

It was very freeing to know that every fabric can be fixed WITH A BUCKET OF BLACK. And if you go into surface design with that approach, you smile a whole lot more when you pull your piece out of the final rinse and you don’t like it. I gave myself permission to be the newbie and just learn the techniques this time.

Two of the many things I will forever remember from Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan:

1. Stitch alone cannot fix a bad composition.
2. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” I love this phrase.

So back to work I am , stitching on a new piece and enjoying their phrases as I try to make sense out of a piece I need to finish! They were great teachers and if you ever have a chance to take a class from them, sell a sewing machine if you need to and go.

Have a good weekend. I hope to enjoy some sun , soccer and the garden.

Be creative, my friends!

After spending the week at the Barn, I keep thinking about all the things I learned there and a few things really need to be written down tonight in my journal. While everything is still fresh. So instead of words tonight , I will give you some pictures from the workshop.

Art outside at the Barn

Finally some sunshine on Friday

The Barn

Collection of baskets

starting to hang up the fabrics at the end of the week

I didn’t do a great job of photographing fabrics so will have to go back and label some of my pieces. It was hard to stop and take pictures with wet hands! Great teachers, great place to make art and be energized and be fed amazing food by the wonderful Margaret Wolf.

Be creative, my friends!

A Class at the Barn

What a great week at the Barn with fiber artists Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan. First of all, I want to tell you what excellent teachers these two are. Their enthusiasm for surface design and teaching skills are truly gifts. I went with really no idea of how the class would be structured and what we would accomplish. Each morning a design technique was covered and generally in the afternoon and evening, we would work away or should I say play away.

The wet studio is amazing. Large sinks, large print tables and we each had our own space-wet and dry with unlimited access to all the supplies.

We learned about print paste, screen printing with the dyes, using unlimited amount of mark making tools, de-constructed screen printing, thermofax screens, freezer paper stencils, paper lamination, monoprinting, soy wax and lots of other things…So many techniques that I was overwhelmed and didn’t end up trying two of them.

Some were old hands at the techniques and came for more of the design aspect of creating a compositional cloth and others like me were new to the techniques. There were several very talented artists. And it was a joy to watch them work. All of us played very hard and really didn’t let the weather hinder us. It rained the entire week so we couldn’t get our screens to dry for de-constructed printing. Getting things to dry and not bleed was a challenge as well with the high humidity.

I met new friends from Canada and Australia. And got to spend time with an old friend . Dorothy Caldwell was in the upstairs studio with a full studio and we had 21 people in class. It was a busy place but never felt crowded.

More tomorrow.

Be creative, my friends.

Sneak Peek: Day 3

We stayed for a lecture last night so ran late… I feel like day #3 was kind of the crossroads for me. I am figuring what techniques I may want to add to what I am doing and what I just don’t like.

And sometimes, it is just what you have the capability to do at home versus the perfect studio which you have here at the Barn. Wet studio that is or having a thermofax machine or investing in lots of mediums. I need to think about it more. But now must run to wash out more fabrics for the next processes.

I am leaving at 4 tonight to travel to a local museum for an art exhibition. Should be fun. Really wish it would stop raining.

Be creative, my friends.

Sneak Peak Day #2

I am have come to the conclusion early in the week: compositional cloth takes a long time to produce. We were given instruction early in the week that mastery of any technique or process can take 10,000 hours. After my past few years of working hard at home and two days into surface design( yes , you may smile! ), I absolutely believe that. And after all the layering of these pieces we are doing day after day this week, it may not even turn out. But the amount of knowledge we are learning each day=one semester at any college. Any college. My head is spinning. I didn’t get to try two of the techniques today but hope to catch up tomorrow.

Today was really cold and rainy which made for awful batching and drying of our fabrics. So now they are wrapped in plastic and being kept warm in an electric blanket.

Look at that – I am not even working in a grid. Amazing and kind of freeing.

Be creative, my friends! Very excited and very tired….I will be washing fabric in my sleep.

Sneak Peak Day #1

Oh so very tired after starting at 8:30 and going until 8 at night at the Barn workshop.

Learning how to print with a silkscreen and print paste.

And do an unlimited amount of things which I am way too tired to explain. 41 people here all working hard together to make beautiful art. With that I will have a glass of wine and fall fast asleep with sweet dreams of more to come tomorrow.

Be creative, my friends.

Colorplay #4 : Too Much Orange

I always love what I see after I complete a piece and look at it through the camera lens and on my computer screen. With this one, I see two things: 1. The light purple line on the top left is way too distracting for me and doesn’t seem to fit. 2. I really do not like the teal green combo but wanted to try it. On a positive note, I was bold and tried the orange thread. I can see my machine quilting is slowly improving with tightly spaced quilting lines.

Colorplay #4
16 x 25

I am trying to do a better record keeping job in hard copy and in my journal. Maybe it will give me a better perspective when I can look back and see things in one place.

I seem to have lost another day with blogger issues. I know tomorrow is unlikely for a post but hope to post during my week away. I have no idea how I will be ready to go by Sunday morning at 8am. And then my father-in-law is having open heart surgery on Monday so I am leaving Marc with a real mess. I feel badly leaving but he says -go. Is everyone’s life this crazy? Maybe.

Being creative definitely keeps me sane. Try it, my friends!

It’s Wednesday Already

I have been playing in the sunshine. Finally beautiful weather with no coat on and my piggies in the flipflops. I can breathe again. No turning back now.

Snippets from my week so far:

1. I have been watching a robin’s nest the past few weeks. Each spring a nest is built on this wreath I have on my side door. The kids love to watch the babies grow. They are peeking out and mom is way too busy feeding them.

getting bigger

I know someone is watching me

Is it ok to jump yet?

And today I startled them by snapping a picture and off they flew. Made my day to see that happen.

2. Loving polka dots. I see these clamped and discharged-itajame with circles.

3. Persevering with machine quilting a small piece. Until I put the binding on wrong last night when it was way too late to be sewing. I hope to finish it tonight.

4. Getting excited to go next week and just itching to start dyeing. I did a little pole wrapping and dyeing on this silk scarf. Not exactly what I wanted but still turned out well enough to wear it. I still can’t get consistent dye take up with the silk and will try a larger diameter pole later.