Play Day With Scarlet

An artist friend of mine from Evansville wanted to come  have a play day with me this week.  So we decided to make paper cloth.  Scarlet had not done that before and I had purchased some new tissue paper that I wanted to experiment with.  We had a blast, of course.

This time, instead of just layering random pieces of paper, which would in the end, be covered with a layer of paint and stitch, I chose to make some that were deliberate and thoughtful, of color scheme and contrast in size and patterns.  These really did not need paint when they were finished.  The only thing I did to them was dry brush some Lumiere metallic paints on them which was caught by the high relief wrinkles from the tissue paper.  And that was enough.  I love them just as they are.

I’m very pleased with the outcome of both of these smaller pieces.  They would make great journal covers, but would have to be mixed with other cloth because of their size.  Since I scanned them into the computer, I have digital files…and cotton inkjet sheets to print on!  I printed them out on cotton and made small journal covers.  I also used a TAP transfer to jazz the covers up a bit.

Some of them have black linings with a black strap and some have brown linings with a brown strap.

If you want to learn how to make paper cloth, there is a tutorial on my sidebar that will give you all the directions for making it.  Just scroll down to the Tutorials section.

Discoveries…

I get plumb silly with myself when I make an exciting (to me anyway) discovery while I’m doing art. Remember this piece of paper cloth? It was the piece I did the tutorial on (see sidebar link).  I am finding this paper/cloth with metallic paint on it notoriously difficult to photograph.  It looks like blotches of paint when it really has a nice warm color all over it.

I decided to make a needle case today for a friend of mine out of this paper/cloth.  I layered it and quilted leaves and hearts on it.  As on the last one I made (see tutorial) I colored in the leaves with Tsukineko Fabrico marker #165 Pine.  The ink is transparent which is a wonderful asset because it doesn’t totally cover all those luscious designs on the papers below.  The heart quilting could barely be seen. Coloring them posed a greater challenge to me because the garnet and orange markers make a pretty solid look, which was not what I wanted. (To see what I mean, see the Tutorial–one of the needlecases has hearts that are painted with the marker and left to dry.) On a whim, I colored a heart with the Garnet #125  and Autumn Leaf #153, but instead of letting it dry, I smudged it with my finger…PERFECT!  I kept doing this to all of the hearts with both colors.  Results? A luscious look full of depth…and you can see the hearts but  they blend softly and don’t  stand out.  Something so simple…

I’m so pleased with how this turned out!

December 18, 2009

That’s my birthday.  I took a total break from all the have-to-do things of the holidays and celebrated the day to my choosing.  I have pictures to share of what I managed to accomplish!

First is my left hand warm up drawing from the morning…

Then because I was searching for something, that ended up with hours of cleaning in my sewing room…not that it needed it or something. lol!  I soon gave my attention to a piece of “paper cloth” I had made some time ago.  I found it in the piles I was looking through.  It’s called paper cloth because you  make it by adhering papers to cloth.  This particular piece I adhered papers to a product called do-sew (I think that’s what it’s called).  It’s used to cut dress patterns from.  It’s a thin woven product.  Because it was thin is why I wanted to use it as the base to make the paper cloth rather than muslin. My paper cloth actually ended up being quite sturdy.  I cut it in a 5 inch strip and layered it with batting and started stitching vines on it; when I got tired of that I threw some hearts in…then with a fabric marker, I “painted” the leaves and the hearts…

This folds in thirds and, after adding a felt strip on the inside, is now a needle holder.  Keeping track of needles can be daunting, but now with this very cute case, I think I can manage it.

There was enough paper cloth to make a…you guessed it…a cell phone pouch to hang from your neck!

The more I feel this “paper cloth” the more I am impressed with the sturdiness and feel of it.  I think there’s enough left that I could make a wallet if I wanted…yes, it’s that sturdy…almost feels like leather…

Even though I didn’t get any world-altering artwork done, I am pleased with the experiment with paper cloth…now I want to create more of it!

…And I did have shrimp and wine…