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Text of the page (random words):
with some interesting samples just when you thought that your 1970 s quilting fabrics you all have them were too ugly to use or that gingham might never be cool again add some paint and a large rubber foam stamp and you have created a wonderful new fabric ready for use diane vintage 70 s red print and gingham prints off white and red acrylic paint with fabric medium foam stamp fabric upholstery fabrics are also great to work on and they are a great size for a book betty two upholstery fabric samples it s hard to see on the left but the large flowers are very dimensional i tried my hand on a piece of cotton decorator weight fabric using both sides for much different looks i used craft acrylic paints and fabric medium both foam and red rubber stamps seemed to work about the same i used my gelli plate and brayered on the paint the slight give of the gelli plate allowed the paint to cover the stamps same fabric two sides foam and red rubber stamps craft acrylic paints and fabric medium top metallic paint bottom craft acrylic marie top red rubber stamps bottom wood block stamp marie used a foam brush to paint her stamps everyone uses a drop cloth or paper towel to paint on or clean up karen took hers to the next level with some interesting stamps on her very colourful drop cloth karen paint splattered drop cloth and stamped images top joyce using a spatula to print bottom meredith foam stamp on decorator fabric lastly karen gave us all one signature from a library discard book so that we can also work on another project throughout the year while we were stamping we cleaned up the extra paint by brayering onto the pages or pulling a print from a gelli plate karen a couple of painted and altered pages top painted paper towel looks almost like netting bottom food colouring on coffee filters i think it is safe to say that we had a good time for this first session and i look forward to the year ahead we are to bring back one finished page to our next session in october posted by fibre optics group at 19 14 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels acrylic paint altered pages book binding fabric medium foam stamps gelli plates red rubber stamps thursday 14 september 2017 catching up with fog posts i must confess i have had a lot going on in my life through all of 2016 and the most of 2017 and have not been posting at all we have continued to meet on our fog tuesdays throughout that time and i have diligently taken and edited pictures but i have not headed down to the computer to do a posting i hope that for the remainder of 2017 and into 2018 i will keep up with our current projects and might even get some of the old posts done as we did some very neat things throughout the year in june 2017 one of our members a very talented artist in her own right gave us a lesson on abstract art this was quite departure for all of us and i must say that it was a learning curve for me mostly having done quilting fibre arts and mixed media pieces over the past many years abstract painting left me wide eyed like a deer in the headlights i did learn that it was not best to scrimp with the paint and that abstract art can be a work in progress allowing layers to dry before adding new ones so you might want to work on more than one project at a time choice of tools can enhance your efforts and are certainly not limited to brushes we had credit cards for scrapers modified brushes hand made stamps drywall tape to name just a few my efforts on one of the two pieces i started are show below i have yet to compete either one left first effort scrimping on paint right new layers more paint more interest i walk each morning around the hood and always have my phone with me so i can take photos of interesting things i see about a week ago i was on my walk and came across this table on the edge of a lawn and could not resist a photo abstract art as its best i marvelled at the artist most certainly a young child able to produce this perfect mess that could most certainly be hung in any gallery and there was likely no adult intervention in the process just a childlike joie de vivre while messing about with some paint i wish as adults we could capture some of that feeling posted by fibre optics group at 16 02 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels abstract art childlike joie de vivre thursday 15 december 2016 collograph 2 monoprinting with our plates sorry it s taken so long to get this post onto the blog back in september we made collograph printing plates see the september posting below and in october we used the plates to make mono prints we learned several things in our october session especially the items used to collage the printing plates themselves and how each behaved when printing with acrylic or fabric paints or the speedball printing ink without a doubt the simpler the collage i e a single layer of cereal box cardboard or a thin crocheted doily the better the mono print that resulted as this was mostly a trial and error day we used craft acrylic paint and copy paper for our printing thin doily thin cereal box cardboard the second ah ha moment was that a more interesting print resulted when there were larger areas of open space between the elements of the collage not only did you get the printed image of the slightly raised area of the plate in some cases you also got an imprint of the background area interesting background print we found differences in techniques for the actual printing depending on how you inked up your plate and how you printed it if you inked you plate and had your copy paper on a piece of craft foam you could use your plate like a rubber stamp placing it face down onto the paper this gave you the opportunity to evenly press on the plate to get a good print if you inked your plate and had it face up on the table you could then place your fabric or paper face down onto the plate and use your hands or a spoon to work the ink onto the receiving surface this is the technique that gave the best results of an imprint into the background areas of the plate adhesive craft foam on cardboard place mat made up of letters the perfect print we did not come ready with the supplies for this last technique but if you have access to an actual printing press perhaps a sizzix big shot or a flower press it is apparently possible to use these devices to emboss damp paper using your collograph plate that s a technique for a long winter s day i personally liked the effect of printing using black speedball fabric printing ink i suspect we should have used a medium of some sort to make the ink slightly more fluid but we brayered it onto a flat surface pressed the printing plate into the ink and printed to our new surface it is best to do a couple of dud prints first and then do your final print less ink gives a much better imprint on some of the plates it seemed to work better to apply the ink directly to the plate working it in with a cheap bristle brush and then do your print here are two techniques that are very easy to do the latter is not actually a collograph plate but gives much the same effect eggshell printing plate incised styrofoam tray this is certainly a technique that warrants some additional exploration especially if you wanted to make prints that were entirely of your own design and making posted by fibre optics group at 14 52 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels collograph monoprinting speedball wednesday 14 december 2016 merry christmas vintage felt stocking circa 1950 s my first and only stocking thanks for joining us at fog again this year posted by fibre optics group at 22 31 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels circa 1950 s merry christmas vintage felt stocking sunday 18 september 2016 fog tuesday collograph printing plates to start off our new year at fog tuesday we are doing a two part session part 1 in september is the making of collograph printing plates and on fog tuesday in october we will be printing collographs with the plates a collograph printing plate simply explained is the creation of a collage of materials with interesting texture and relief on a rigid substrate and the resulting monoprint collograph is created when you apply inks or paints to the plate surface and print onto another surface such as fabric or paper little works of art in themselves tl corrugated cardboard tr lace buttons cheesecloth bottom lace doily the supplies for making a collograph plate are quite simple a rigid substrate matt board two layers of cardboard glued together mdf white glue or glue gun paint brush to apply glue and varnish liquitex gloss varnish found objects feathers netting lace buttons grunge board foam sheets corrugated cardboard toothpicks elastics cheesecloth puzzle pieces washers grunge board scrapbooking pieces cereal box cardboard apply a thin surface of white glue to your substrate and create your collage with your found objects the only real rules you need to follow are ensure that all items you use for your collage are the same height and not too deep leave some open areas around your objects unless you are doing an overall textured pattern on your plate for example lace or cheesecloth if you are using letters make certain that you glue them on mirror image if your items are a bit heavier you may want to use the glue gun to adhere them first and then do a layer of white glue the two items that i used for my first plate were not even so did not produce a good print also the felt leaves though covered in the gloss varnish did not take the paint very well once the collage is completed you want to let them dry thoroughly we set ours out in the sun to dry though you could leave overnight or use a hair dryer to speed up the process fruits of or labour drying in the sun when the plates are dry apply two thin layers of the gloss varnish to the front and back of the plate as well as sealing in the sides especially if you are using cardboard as your substrate the coating of gloss varnish seals all surfaces and provides a protective layer once you apply the wet medium you are using paint or ink and protects your plate for additional uses great texture more texture and letters placed mirror image left zipper pieces and two layers of grunge board to even the layers top right adhesive foam shapes bottom right simple shape cut from cereal box cardboard more about our printing experiences in october stay tuned top simple cardboard plate printed on fabric bottom mirror image grunge board scrapbooking shapes posted by fibre optics group at 12 50 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday 23 may 2016 fog tuesday we all felt it we have worked with commercial felt in past sessions but in our session in may we focused entirely on commercial felt squares and the multitude of ways it could be manipulated embellished stitched and most importantly how it distressed melted with our heat guns felt comes in a variety of colours and also as printed or embossed felt the printed felt is quite fun to use and adds an element of extra colour to the piece we did not try embossed felt but it is available at michael s here in canada if you are a little more on the diva side felt also comes flocked and glittered printed felt left hand cut petals of printed felt heat distressed and assembled with a brad add a pin backing and you have a great brooch to wear printed felt stitched and heat distressed one of the ways we altered the look of the felt before stitching and melting was with the use of commercial and handcrafted stencils and stamps jan commercial stencil left printed with metallic paint right gillian several techniques on all pieces variations on a theme commercial flower stencil couched yarns top felt with added painted fusible web pieces left and heat distressed right bottom hand crafted stamp glue gun glue on a piece of foam core left printed felt middle and heat distressed right glue gun glue on foam core left stamp cut from a shoe insole top right bottom right stamp made from commercial sticky backed foam stickers if you want to maintain some structure with your piece before melting you can stitch on the felt beforehand this ensures that your piece will not fall apart we tried both cotton and polyester threads and both seemed to work diane stitched and distressed nan stitched and distressed if you own or have access to a sizzix or similar die cutting machine you can cut shapes with your sizzix and then heat distress them with your heat gun both craft embossing and industrial heat guns work well you just need to test beforehand how much heat you need to use to melt your felt leaves cut with a sizzix die and then heat distressed many synthetic fabrics will distress melt with a heat gun while we mostly focused on the poly felt by kunin and creatology both are widely available at michael s and most of the dollar stores karen did try some polar fleece and it seemed to work very well karen adding elements to a denim piece left heat distressed polar fleece right another way to embellish your piece is to print an image onto fusible web and then iron it onto your felt then you can be as creative as you want with stitching and heat distressing chris image on fusible web transferred by ironing to the felt left stitched and heat distressed right while we were using the 9 by 12 inch squares of felt i guess they really should be called rectangles j felt is also availed in larger precut pieces and by the yard metre off the bolt at your local fabric store just think of the possibilities with a very large piece of felt eco alesrt you should also feel good about using felt as a crafting item as it is mostly made from 100 post consumer recycled and bpa free plastic bottles and produces a high quality fibre at a very modest price until next time have fun with felt meredith and jan posted by fibre optics group at 11 49 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels creatology felt dollar stores heat distressing kunin felt michael s sizzix older posts home subscribe to posts atom fibre optics group calgary alberta canada creating unique artwork experimenting with new techniques and media encouraging creativity view my complete profile blog archive 2017 3 december 1 merry christmas september 2 2016 7 december 2 september 1 may 2 april 1 january 1 2015 15 december 2 november 1 october 2 june 2 april 2 march 1 february 3 january 2 2014 29 december 3 november 3 october 2 september 2 august 1 july 2 june 2 may 1 april 4 march 5 february 2 january 2 2013 28 december 6 november 2 october 3 september 1 july 1 june 2 may 2 april 5 march 3 february 1 january 2 2012 13 december 3 november 3 october 4 september 3 contact us fibreopticsgroup gmail com search this blog the meredith helgeson 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