Acrylic Inks and Rainy Days

The rain came in the night, falling blindly into the dark and waking me with its music.  My dreams were of sunlight, though.  I was visiting solitary places and talking to someone I could not see, just behind my shoulder.  When I woke, I realized it must have been the rain I had been chatting to . . .

Rain focuses me, makes me see details, where the sun can distract me.  Today's weather seemed the perfect time to try something new.  From reading an article in Quilting Arts Magazine, I was inspired to try the Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Artists Inks that Judy Coates Perez used for her experiments.  I have been fascinated by the idea of inks on fabric, and have tried several manufacturers' inks over the years, but these sounded more promising than those I had previously used.

The inks responded beautifully to fabrics in both wet and dry states.  These are some of the results I obtained with the six-bottle "primary color" set (though I don't remember sepia or green being primaries . . . ?).

This first little piece began life as a scrap of ivory linen from an old summer dress.  I used Sepia, Magenta, and Red in a lot of sweeping strokes and dots:

This second scrap was a white-on-white cotton print, which is a fabric I love to play with because the printed design acts as a resist.  This fabric will make a lovely small spot of interest in a piece that might otherwise use plain silks and linen.  I like to make my own marks with stitch and interesting thread, so too much competition from printed fabric can be an overload of lines to be deciphered:

While in Savannah I found cotton organza at Fabrika.  It began calling my name as I moved toward the back room, so I absolutely and positively HAD to take  some home with me.  I laid a thick, rough piece of linen under it as I painted the organza, and got a pale result— the sort of thing that will be most interesting when laid over other pieces of fabric.  I will photograph it when it is used; it does not show well by itself, it is so pale and transparent.

I have a small bag of bits and pieces that I occasionally delve in to for color experiments.  Some of these are ridiculously small, but they serve a purpose when I want to try out a paint color or when I need some small piece of contrasting texture.  I painted a handful of these scraps by altering the dye recipe in small increments.  The colors all blend well, with this common base.

None of these techniques are what the inks are really meant for.  Inks can write and draw on fabric, can be laid down on fabrics already printed, painted, or dyed, and stand out.  This is something I will do when I am sure of the colors and the point of thinning that causes the inks to bloom.  Right now, it is enough to see how different fabrics take the acrylic ink.

This is a piece I used for ink drawing just a few weeks ago.  I used a permanent ink and some brightly-colored but non-permanent inks in this experiment.  After the ink had dried, I ironed it on the linen setting, then sprayed the surface with a light misting of water to check for colorfastness.  It is obvious which of the inks was the permanent one.  Unfortunately, the manufacturer does not carry a large selection of colors in this permanent product, so I did not pursue the idea.  Limited color range always stops me cold.

And along with the inks used for drawing and writing, I have some hand-carved stamps that might be interesting if . . . .

To be continued . . .