Embroidered Collage

  I bought some printfoam in my last Dick Blick order.  It's basically a cleaner, larger, more uniform version of the meat tray.  I tried it out last night in order to get some background leaves on fabric and to decorate paper.  I used a mechanical pencil with the tip withdrawn and it was fun to draw into, although mistakes were not correctable.  I tried to push down the negative space so it would not print, but instead I changed the texture.  This is actually kind of an intriguing development for when I design further prints.  If I want blank space I can cut the foam up and glue it to a foamboard block or some such.  I intend to use up the other 11 sheets playing and see what I want to do from there.  This might be a good way to try and get over my trepidation of doing multi-colored prints.

I tried to print the fabric first, as that was my primary motivation.  My first thought was fabric paint, but when I sponged the paint on it beaded up and slid around and hardly any transferred to the fabric.  So I went to acrylic craft paints.  I had to get the sponging/swiping/dabbing technique down with small adjustments to time and amount on the sponge that I can't really verbalize.  I started out using a brayer to transfer, but ended up just using my hands.  I did get three pieces of fabric nicely marked up.  The commercial pattern showed through a little bit, but not as much as I had been hoping - maybe I'll try mixing the paint with a medium first.  And it dried a little textured and crusty, which is what I was expecting from this paint.  I wouldn't want to wear it, and of course it's not washable, but it will work nicely for postcards. 

I did a few sheets of paper the same way while I was at it and was reasonably successful.  I did end up messing up one page, for having this imagery anyway, by trying to print a third layer of color on it that I'd sponged on too thickly.  The section of paper pictured above was printed twice with the direction of the plate reversed in between.  It is my first piece set aside for Melissa's hand-decorated paper swap.