May Morning Dew

It was a beauty of a day in Middlebridge.  There were too many Saturday errands, and after that, I found myself trying to discuss two new robins nests being assembled in rather inadvisable locations in my yard with their overly industrious denizens. There were some great theatrics involving pretend-broken-wings and so forth, me talking in a soothing tone. Pretty entertaining for the neighbors I expect.

I left my bird pals alone...there is one brilliant blue egg in one of the nests...and headed into my studio.

I started with the regular materials for experimenting with rubbings taken from my original relief carvings- but this time using a very small carving and silk papers, and I liked the effect.

I have been making rubbings of some of my relief carvings on paper, but I had been to the recycling center recently and, having secured some likely grey upholstery fabric, I set to work, trying out the fabric crayons.

"New Moon"

Paper rubbings have been annoying me because of their fragility. Having to roll them carefully and keep them from crumpling is a real challenge, although I really enjoy the way the Caran D'Arches crayons I had been using looked, nice and dry, good color range, easy to manage and not at all greasy. I was hoping to find a similar workability with the fabric crayons I picked out.

Fat chance! the Pentel ones, designed to go right onto the fabric itself, and recommended for natural fibers, were VERY soft like oil pastels, but the colors were quite strong. I did up a sample size on my new fabric, using one of my favorite smaller sculptures, New Moon. Seemed like a good idea to start with that one, since I had just had a delightful view of the waxing sliver of the new moon the previous evening.

I also tried a Crayola fabric crayon, only 8 colors, designed to be colored in reverse on paper to create an iron-on transfer sheet, and recommended for synthetics. I just did the rubbing as usual with this oe. I liked the texture of working with them much more, but the colors were really different going on than when the ironing was done.

So then I ironed the samples, along with another sample I had made on fabric with the Arches crayons, ironing them into the fabric on high heat from the reverse.

Right now they are all in the washer!  the ultimate test. Stay tuned!