A quick project and a slow project

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Sometimes, it’s quicker to make something that you need than it is to go out and buy it. When I realized that a draft was coming in through the door to the back porch, I went down to the studio, pulled out a fabric remnant, and had myself a warmer kitchen inside of fifteen minutes!

Since this was going on the floor, I picked out a piece of fabric that wasn’t white. I cut out a rectangle six inches high and one inch longer than the width of the door. I sewed a tube, turned it inside out and sewed one of the ends shut. Then I went out to the kids’ sandbox, filled my tube with sand, and sewed the other end of the tube closed. I even made a second draft stopper to give as a gift later on!

 

So there’s a side of this project though, that isn’t so speedy. I discovered in the same week that the small pieces on the eyelet printing block were starting to come loose, and as I began to test the pieces, I realized that all of the small pieces had to be replaced.

There are 240 small pieces on the eyelet block. The happy thing is that cutting and mounting the block is a part of the printing process. The intricate work can either look dreadfully tedious (in which case, block printing may not be your thing) or meditative. While I’m in the latter category, the need to recut the block will slow down my ability to produce new goods for a few days!

Quick Project (for immediate satisfaction) + Slow Project (for sense of accomplishment) = Balance!

The new green

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Home Sweet needs a new green. Something versatile and pretty. I mix my own colors, so there’s no limit to what I can make, but knowing exactly what I want is a different story. Do I want something like a granny smith apple? A lime? A pea shoot?

How about clover? Lichen? Sage? Marsh grass? Olive? Olivene? Seawater? Citron? You see where I’m going. There are infinite variations on the color green.

In this case, I just locked myself in the studio and started mixing. I like color, so I wasn’t aiming at a sort of “green neutral”. Nor was I trying to mix something too bright and overpowering. I ended up with this:

I let Eli pick the print to try it out in, and he chose Hatteras. Although I didn’t know it at the time, his plan was for me to print it vertically, and then he could draw or paint flowers at the tops of each column. He is very much five years old. Here it is again from farther away:

It reminds me a lot of jadeite milk glass that I see in antique stores all the time. Here’s a picture borrowed from Mercier Beaucoup that shows exactly what I mean:

I like the color- I love it, really- but I’m not sure how well it fits in to the rest of the color palette. While I decide, I thought of using this sample fabric to cover a cushion on a church pew in our entryway. I wish this was a better picture, but it’s kind of a cruddy day here. Hatteras in Jadeite would fit right in though, no?

What additives do

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One of the most perplexing things that you come across if you get into any kind of screen printing or block printing is all of the different choices there are when it comes to inks. There are at least a dozen brands and varieties of ink that are commonly available, each with their own pros and cons. I’ve favored Jacquard Professional Ink for a while- it’s nice and thick, not too smelly, and keeps comparatively well.

There are several different additives that you can use too, although without trying them I don’t think it’s immediately obvious what they do and what the difference is between them. Here are a few that I use regularly in the studio:

Aqueous Stay-Open (Union Aerotex ATEX-9600)- Add it to ink to give the ink a longer “open time” (i.e. keep it from getting gummy). It’s used in small quantities, so it doesn’t much change the consistency of the ink. Whether or not I use it depends on how large the batch is that I’m working with (I usually use between 1/4 and 1/2 cup at a time) and also what the temperature and humidity are like in the studio. If it’s warm and dry, the ink will dry faster, which makes the Stay Open a good idea.

Water- Yep, water. Sometimes Jacquard Professional is a little too thick. You can add a little at a time and mix it into the entire batch, or sprinkle a little on the ink that’s already rolled out onto glass and go over it with your roller.

Colorless Ink/ Extender- Before I bought this, I wasn’t sure what the purpose of colorless ink was. The name “extender” made it sound like it made the ink more economical, by extending the pigmented ink, but the colorless stuff wasn’t any less expensive. I wasn’t sure if it was used to change the consistency or open time, either. Turns out, colorless ink is pretty self explanatory- it’s the same consistency as the pigmented ink, but without the pigment. Unlike water, it doesn’t thin the ink out, and it isn’t really used to make the ink stretch farther. What it is handy for is making ink more translucent. While printers are often looking for very opaque ink, sometimes a translucent effect is lovely too:

At the top is the pigmented ink without any extender added. The next three samples show increasing quantities of extender. With this recycled hemp/ organic cotton fabric, the translucent ink allows the beautiful texture of the fabric to show through. Here’s the same thing shown in black:

The colorless ink added to black makes for a nice, smoky effect. Just like the navy ink, when the black is used alone, the opacity of the ink obscures the texture of the fabric. When the colorless ink is mixed in, you can enjoy both the print and the fabric. I’m looking forward to using the translucent inks- maybe in combination with the opaque inks- on a few projects!

So for any printers out there, are there any other ink additives that you use? What do they do and how do you use them?