How about a little screen printing…..

One of the techniques that we learned with Lyric Kinard was screen printing. Now this is a technique that I have never really been interested in and never thought that I would use, but it was certainly fun to try!!!

Lyric had brought a bunch of screens, both framed ones and unframed and we were given the opportunity to use any of them.

She first demonstrated proper technique, from how to hold the squeegee…

…to how to make the pulls of the paint…..

***Dont you love her clothing colors….purple, orange and green!!

This is my first try….you can tell that I double swiped the right hand side as it ended up darker and thicker……

Once again, this is not a favorite technique!!! The main reason is that I find it hard to think that there is one design that I will use over and over and over again… at least not enough to justify having a screen made. But, as with most things, I am sure that I will soon find that I simply CANNOT live without it.

A little more beading (part 2)…..

On the second morning, Lyric went back to beading and showed us a few more neat techniques….

First we made “stacks”. To do this you bring the needle to the front of the piece, add how ever many beads you want, then add one securing bead and pass the needle thru all of the stacked beads (skipping the securing bead).

The next step was to us the stacks to form a Bezel to hold a Cabochon (flat bead or stone with no hole). The technique is to trace around the cabochon (button in this case) and build stacks just outside of the line. You then place the cabochon in place, fold over the stacks and run your thread thru all of the top beads, adding beads between if necessary….

Look at all of the different ways that Lyric was able to use her Bezels…..

Here are a couple more of her sample pieces…..

Look at these fun stacks…….

Lots of fun inspiration…..

Where to start….

Today, I had the wonderful pleasure of spending the day with Lyric Kinard as a part of a two day “Surface Design Sampler Platter” workshop. We went full tilt for 6-1/2 hours with about 20 minutes for lunch. Over the next few posts I will try to show what we did, but I wanted to start out with my favorite…..stamp carving!!!!

We used white rubber erasers as our palette and started out by sketching out a few designs…..

We used these drawings as rubbings to transfer the design to the eraser….

….and then started cutting, first with an X-Acto knife……

….and then adding some details with a linoleum carving tool. The most fun thing to do was to cut a circle. The technique included inserting the knife point at an angle into the eraser. You then turned the eraser in a circle until the knife arrived back at the starting point.

The circle popped out easily!!!!

My second design (cut on the other side of the eraser) was done almost entirely with the Lino-tool

Now came the moment of truth….what would this look at when printed!!!

We used a foam brush to pat the paint onto the stamp…..

and….VOILA…… HOW MUCH FUN IS THIS!!!!!

Lyric has a “signature” fabric where everyone places their stamp and then signs. It was fun to see all of the designs that have come out of her workshops…..

Well, there is one technique…..we also did beading, screen printing, foiling, and image transfer…..and there is still another day to come!!!!

More later…..