TAP Transfer Artist Paper on Fabric...Another StencilGirl Blog Hop!

Don't you love when things just come together perfectly?

I was asked to participate in this week long blog hop with StencilGirl and Lesley Riley's TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) and I was already planning to experiment with creating a graffiti style piece inspired by this adorable image of Yoshi, my future dog guide foster puppy. 

 

I've always got TAP in my stash, and knew it was the perfect tool for what I was planning! I took the image into Photoshop, cropped it and played around until I had the graffiti look I was going for. Then, following the instructions that come with the transfer paper*, I printed my image and transferred it to a piece of muslin (I wanted the off white colouring for Yoshi's face).  

*I won't go into details because Lesley does it much better than I could. 

See the links at the bottom of this post for more information about TAP.

Here is what the transfer looks like on the muslin. I love the bright, vibrant colour and clarity!

I knew I wanted to stretch this piece over a canvas frame, so I added some elements that would go off beyond the main image so that they could be seen on the sides of the finished stretched canvas.  I fussy cut some bricks and auditioned them in random places. (tip: I use my iPhone to take pictures as I go so I can compare and select the placement I like best and then remember how to get back to it!)

I also cut out Yoshi's name in navy fabric to make it stand out a bit more.




It was now time to add some stencilling using acrylic paint.

I used Terri Stegmiller's Broken Circles and her Heart Grid stencils. In order to have control over exactly where I placed the elements, I masked off individual elements using post-it notes.

I added the acrylic paint using a sponge brush.

I realized a needed something else, so I pulled out Seth Apter's Inside Out stencil. Seth has some wonderful stencil designs that are perfect for graffiti work!

Once the paint dried, I was ready to fuse on the bricks and letters. (IMPORTANT: use the release paper included with the TAP if you are going to iron over the transferred image!)

Over to the sewing machine...I layered the piece with batting and free motion stitched around the bricks, loosely doodling the lines. 

Next, I set the machine to do satin stitch, but I kept the free motion foot on and the feed dogs down so I could get a more 'grungy' look to my stitch as I outlined the letters for Yoshi's name.

It's now ready to be stretched and stapled to the pre-stretched canvas. 

I really like the look of the elements that carry over to the side of the canvas. 

This was really fun and I'm thinking of working on a bit of a graffiti series, perhaps making a piece like this for each of the puppies I foster. First on the agenda will be to go back and get a favourite image of Dime, my first foster puppy!

Here are the other stops on today's hop:

StencilGirl Talk

Kirsten Reed

Linda Kittmer - you are here!

Julia Kellogg - next stop...

If you missed the other stops on this week long hop, head back to Monday's StencilGirl Talk post so you can find them all!  Have fun!

Don't forget to leave a comment at each of the blog hop stops for a chance to win these fabulous prizes!

Links:

StencilGirl Website

Lesley Riley Website

Purchase TAP

Free TAP Videos

Paid TAP Instructional Class

Another Piece of Rust...

The current GOE challenge has me working with rust again, but this time I'm approaching it in a whole new way.

Ann, one of our GOE members took these photos of a rusty grate while she was on a golf course in Mexico (perhaps this is why she never make it on the Women's PGA Tour...just saying...).

I can't reveal too much yet, but I thought I'd give you a peek at the machine stitched grass I've been working on.  I've layered some tan thread under the green to give it the texture and colour of the old, dead grass that's under some of the healthy green grass in the photo.  Instead of using rust dyed fabric (which is too hard to work with right now with the cast and all), I've edited the original images in Photoshop Elements and then trasferred it to a piece of cotton using Transfer Artist Paper.

This image shows a bit of the hand stitching I've started to accent the larger blades of grass.

I'm having fun with this piece, but it's  frustrating me that the hand stitching is causing me pain. I've decided that in the interest of my hand I'm going to have to lay off all hand work until I've healed.  I can't wait to get this cast off!

Rust

The rust piece is finally finished!  I learned while finishing it that apparently I would prefer to thread my machine left handed, but the cast wouldn't let me get close enough.  As I tried it just went 'clunk' against the machine, so I was forced to use my right hand.  LOL  Thankfully the actual machine sewing process isn't hampered too much by the cast! In spite of the challenges I encountered working with the rust dyed fabric (you can read about it here, and more about how the piece began here), I think I'll work with it again because I'm really pleased with the finished piece.

Here are a few close up images of the piece:

Linking up with Off The Wall Friday.

Dream Cat

Today I was working with some more of my newly marbled fabric and I got side tracked making a couple of ATCs.  I thread sketched the cats and then stitched on the little 'dream' charm so it would hang from the end of the tail.  I also used some TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) to add the words 'enjoy the journey'.  Considering that I was finishing the one for this months swap as my friends were coming up the driveway, I'm please to say I'm ahead of the game for the January swap!  As usual, I've made two so that I can keep one.  I like doing this because I can look through my collection to see all of the ones I have given as well as those I have received.

If I Were Half My Age...

Wouldn't it be fun to design and wear a wonderful steampunk creation?

The current challenge for my fibre art group, GOE, is 'steampunk'.  I don't often pull out my sketchpad to design my fibre art pieces (I tend to work more intuitively and let the pieces lead me where they may), but for this piece I started by designing the steampunk dress on paper.  Once I had the drawing of the dress I started gathering my materials and the real fun began.

Thanks to my husband's generosity, I was able to cut into a really old leather jacket that he had finally stopped wearing because of all of the holes he'd worn into it.  Although I was reluctant to cut into it (I loved the old worn look of it) I did realize that he was starting to look like a street person when he wore it. LOL  The brown bodice of the dress as well as the black band across the background both came from that wonderful jacket.  The black part is the cuff, complete with the snap closure.  The zipper that finishes the upper edges was also from that jacket.  I used little scrapbooking eyelets to be able to lace the bodice of the dress.

Because of the weight of all of the leather, gears and other materials, I actually had to reinforce the back of this piece with a 1"x 2" piece of wood across the width so that it would hang without drooping into itself.

The background fabrics in the piece are my own original designs too.  The top piece was photo transferred using a copyright free image and TAP and the bottom piece was created using tissue paper, foil and organza.  This piece was left over from a box I made last year.

Steampunk On My Mind

Sometimes things just all line up and everything works out.  2012 is off to a great start.

My friend Leah set Steampunk as the theme for the next challenge for our GOE group.  When she sent the email, she included a link for a very funny Youtube video called Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk).

While I was doing sketches and gathering ideas and materials to get started on this challenge, Lisa posted the theme "Metal" for this month's ATC swap.  Well, Steampunk and metal just seem a perfect match so I was off to the studio to play and these are the ATCs I made today.

Before adding some actual metal bits to the ATC, I started by using TAP to transfer images of gears on the background as well as the photo of the guy from the youtube video onto the copper sheeting.

And for my GOE friends, no this in not my challenge piece~just a warm up.

ATC Booklet

This month's theme for Lisa Fulmer's ATC swap is June Bugs so I decided to play around with an idea I got from Jane Davila and make a little ATC booklet.  I don't usually take this much time to make one ATC but it was fun.  In fact, it's really like making 8 ATCs in one!

I used copyright free images of bugs from the Internet, information from Wikipedia (printed on TAP), Inktense pencils, stamps, stitch and acrylic paint.

Lesley Riley's TAP-Transfer Artist Paper

I've just tried TAP for the first time.  What a wonderful product.  It is the most amazing product for transferring images on to fabric (or "virtually any surface" to quote the packaging).  I don't have any photos to share yet because I'm just in the very beginning stages of designing a new piece, but I had to take a minute to give a shout out about this great product.  It's from C&T Publishing and I know you can get it on the Interweave site and from Amazon too.

Have fun playing!