A Bag Lady At Heart

This semester I've been taking a silk screen class at the Corcoran. Working with ink on paper. It's a different way of thinking, working with opacity of inks to create depth. I don't have any formal art training, so it's hard for me. But interesting.

And this simple little leaf is my first four-color separation project.

For those of you with art training, or who are really good at drawing, particularly in Photoshop, this isn't going to impress you. But I'm quite proud of it.

To get four colors, you have to burn four silkscreens - one for the green of the leaf, one for the background, one for the border, and one for the veins of the leaf. I drew each part on a separate layer in Photoshop so I could print them out separately but they'd still line up in the end.

Apparently with paper you can build color with layers and layers of ink, and then sand down to a previous color in one area, and then build up. This backwards and forwards is something you can't really do on fabric. At least, not without really toxic chemicals. It's really cool.

But next semester I am going back to the textiles. I miss the teacher. I miss the feeling of the class. I love dyeing fabric. I am so very tactile.

And I love the immediacy of sticking something white in a pot of dye and washing it out an hour later. And it is fuchsia! Or turquoise! Or whatever color!

I haven't dyed any fabric in a while, but I had a bunch sitting around and Betty got on a sewing kick and now boy, do we have bags! Because moderation, it's so boring.

These started out as yards of white cotton. And I think they turned out beautifully.

If I may say so myself.