Wednesday, August 18, 2010

August Tart Kit: Sun Printing with Grids


Sue used craft foam for printing a grid onto her fabric. She blended two paints to give the two-toned color to her piece. With this month's kit, you will take advantage of the summer sun and print on PFD fabric using Setacolor. This is a transparent paint and works terrific to create silhouettes on fabric. The technique is very easy, so to give you a challenge we want you to work with grids - the fencing included in the kit to print with or in your composition's design.

You will be painting the diluted Setacolor onto wet fabric which you have laid on a hard surface. Unless your surface is already in the sun, it will need to be portable in order for you to move the fabric outdoors to the sun.


Diluting your Setacolor will determine the intensity of the color. The photo below shows two greens with different dilutions. Add water to get the value you prefer.


Once the fabric is colored and still wet, lay your fencing on top and put it all into the sun. The fencing must touch the cloth in order to get a defined line. You may need to soften the plastic in order for it to lay flat.


Once the paint has dried, remove the fencing to see your gridded silhouettes. Heat set the paint with your protected iron.


As you will observe, the area open to the sun stays dark, while the area covered by the grids fades to a lighter color.

We have included craft foam if you want to make your own grids. In the photo following, squares were cut from the foam and placed on the fabric. When the fabric dried and the squares were removed, the results look a little like bright windows.


The reverse image could be made by cutting the foam into this shape.


Try printing with other grids such as rug canvas, plastic needlepoint canvas, screening, other interesting fencing materials or cut your own grids as Sue did with her sample at the top of the page.