Gelatin Printing On Fabric

Today Beth (who wanted to remain faceless), Maureen, and Janalee came over to investigate gelatin printing with me. Beth and I prepared cookie sheets and pie tins of gelatin last night. This morning when we began we had some difficulties. While, it was not too hard to remove the gelatin from the pie tins, it was practically impossible to get it it out of the cookie sheets in one piece. We decided to leave the gelatin that was in the cookie sheets and work directly from the tray. We used foam brushes and brayers to apply water soluble fabric paint onto the gelatin's surface and then layered stencils, paper cutouts and plant materials over the paint layer.

     

We printed on prepared for dye cottons (fabric from Dharma.) Lay the fabric on the paint and press your hand or hard brayer over the fabric.  The picture on the left shows two layers of paint and you can see the brush marks and stencils clearly. 

 

This image is a 'ghost image'.  That is, the paint that is left over after the first print and the stencils are moved.  The stencils can be flipped, and repositioned.

When you are done with your original and ghost, just wipe the plate gently with a damp paper towel and on the the next image.

  

Here, Janalee used one of her stencils as a stamp.  She painted it orange and then rolled the brayer over it. 

  Eventually, the plates fall apart.  I had a lot of fun.  The process is very tactile, a little messy but inexpensive and requires little special materials.  I think I will try it with the kids when they come home.

Further resources:  Pokey Bolton of Quilting Arts has a great 'how to' blog article.  Linda Germain has very good video on Youtube on gelatin printing on paper below. 

 

Quilts from the December / January Quilt Show

The quilts above are the two I finished for the art quilt show. The top one is titled "Sycamore" and the bottom is "Tree of Life."
Sycamores have a bark that does not expand as it grows and so the bark splits open as the tree ages. This was the inspiration for my quilt. The Sycamore quilt is made from layered sheer fabrics in silks, polyesters, cottons and cheesecloth. While it is hard to see in the picture, the side panels are quilted Sycamore leaves. I used a colored pencil to color in the sky in areas where the leafs did not overlap. After layering and apliquing the quilt fabrics, I used a natural sponge to paint layers of textile fabric to simulate lichen. Lastly, I have added a couple of beads as accents.
The second quilt is an exploration of a traditional theme, the tree of life. I painted a commercial stamp with diamond shapes onto cotton I prepared. I then cut out and appliqued the tree onto blue-violet silk. The flowers are sequins and the leaves, hand-painted, cut-out cotton shapes sewn on. I then painted each of the animal shapes with fabric paint and again appliqued them to the silk.