Scarves - up to my neck in dye

The dyeing and printing go on. I even bought a mini-fridge in which to keep my dye concentrates, as they were usurping the condiments' space in the kitchen refrigerator. I might reach in and pull out a container of #9 scarlet when I actually wanted red wine vinegar. So the purchase of the mini-fridge seals my commitment to continue. In fact, I liked the results of my last two tank tops so much that I thought I would try to duplicate them on rayon scarves. I thought that I had learned enough about what I did that I could duplicate them.  Ah...not quite.

Nevertheless, it was instructive (as well as frequently frustrating), and now I'm ready to move on to some different motifs, colors and techniques. I can hardly wait to see what comes about, since my novice efforts don't seem to render what I envision at the start.  But that does make it interesting.   

Dye, dye again

Here's the reprise of the concept that went awry in my previous dyeing project.  I'm pleased with this result, and I think changing some of the elements improved my original idea as well.  I certainly came closer to achieving the color scheme I envisioned.

















To begin, I stenciled on the same flower I used in the previous try, this time using Jacquard Clear Water Based Resist, first time I had tried it.  A strangely oily and much more liquid product than Presist.  The bottle says that it is tintable with dye so I added a bit of the russet color I had made for an accent.  However, I decided that wasn't the effect I wanted, so I washed it out, leaving behind faint images.  Then I stenciled a different flower design with the resist, this time adding no color. You can just see their embossed-looking shapes in this photo.  Next I silk screened on the same green shapes, cut out of freezer paper, as before,  adding more blue to the green, mixed with print paste.


After that I tried another silk screen technique, using drawing fluid to trace a fairly simple design from Dover's Chinese Stencil Designs.  I simply printed out the design to the size I wanted, taped it to the screen and traced the design with a very fine brush.  Since it was the first time I had tried it, I had no idea of how thickly the drawing fluid needed to be applied to work its magic.  After the drawing fluid dried, I put a few spoonfuls of screen filler on my silk screen and pulled it across with the squeegee.  Once that dried, the drawing fluid is supposed to be washed out with cold water.  Yes, it worked; there was the design, ready to print! 

The final step was the violet background.  Since so much blue had washed out previously, I made my violet much more blue than I wanted and lighter than last try.   I applied it, mixed with print paste, with a small sponge roller.  The next day I thought it was just too blue and used an inexpensive hobby air brush to spray on more violet dye that was a bit less blue, although I really couldn't see much effect from that.  At this point the fabric was fairly wet, and I thought it possible that the resist-stenciled flowers had simply dissolved, as there was barely any visible trace of them.

After each step I let the dye cure overnight.  Finally I was ready to wash my fabric...   The resist-stenciled flowers slowly appeared, white against the violet background.  They did resist the violet, but did not entirely resist wherever the green shapes or the russet design was printed on top of them.  The faint russet-tinged images of the flowers I had originally stenciled and washed out are still there, adding a bit more complexity, which I like. The background lost a lot of blue as it had on my first time, so it came out about the color I wanted, if a bit lighter than I would have liked.  All in all, it was worth trying this again.  I can't wait to try other techniques, other colors.  This is so much fun!

Charley Harper

Now here's an artist who knew how to illustrate birds.

It was probably a couple of years ago that I first spied a Charley Harper calendar in a Paper Source store and immediately wanted to see more of those striking, stylized images as well as find out about the man who made them. There's certainly a lot of info on the web about Charley Harper, but I especially like this site, Charley Harper Prints.

He was of the generation that came of age around the time of WWII, and after his stint in the military, he graduated from the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1947.  Searching for a illustration style that would set him apart, he eventually developed a flattened, simplified approach which he called "minimal realism" and applied notably to nature subjects. It was a style also especially suited to serigraphy, aka silk-screen printing, which he embraced enthusiastically.  Be sure to read his own genial account of his artistic development and career.

One of the things I found most interesting was his work for Ford Times magazine. According to various Internet sources it was first an employee publication and later a general interest magazine.  The Charley Harper Prints website says it was sent by Ford dealers to their patrons.  My parents were Buick drivers, so I'd never heard of it; have you?  From 1948 to 1982, Charley Harper contributed illustrations to Ford Times, and it was through this publication that he became acclaimed for his renditions of birds, hand-screened prints of which were even made available to readers.

To me, whatever the date, his is quintessentially art of the 50s, and as part of the generation that fell in love with the whirls and curls of Art Nouveau in the late 60s, it took me a while to fully appreciate this particular aesthetic.  But who couldn't look at his brilliant reductions that capture so well the minimal telling details and not be impressed?  His artwork is graphic, colorful, and decorative, with subjects – birds, bugs, fish, forest creatures – that are easy to love.



Today's aesthetic sensibility seems to be attuned to his work; locally I've seen prints by at least a couple of artists who have obviously been inspired by him. It seems that designer Todd Oldham as creative director of Old Navy is probably responsible for introducing Charley Harper to today's shoppers; in a video that's definitely worth watching he talks about discovering a Ford Times magazine in a thrift store and his subsequent captivation with Charley Harper's art. Whatever may be the case, I'm certainly grateful to have been introduced to this artist with his unique vision. Not only is his artwork a delight to look it, it also helps one's own eye to see with a different perspective.