WOYWW 483: The one where I make sun dyed fabric at my front porch desk

Some of you have noticed the reason for my WOYWW sabbatical was because I hosted Art Journal Journey last month, and created art every day.  It left no time to visit the many deskers who would drop by.

Just as I returned, I'm pulling a NO-NO and giving you a very long post, something Julia, our desker queen at Stamping Ground won't be happy about.  However, if all you came to see was the rocking horse, scroll to the bottom of the post.

Let's begin with materials from back left clockwise: fluid acrylics, masks and stencils, water, large scruffy paintbrush, scissors, old cotton bed sheet, all sitting on plastic bag wrapped over plastic sign.

I tore the fabric to about the size of the plastic covering, then saturated it in the clear water.

I spread the wet fabric out as smooth as possible,

then chose three colors for my background.

The blue quickly diffused when hit by the water, but the other colors were thicker.

To create the background, I simply swiped the colors from left to right, allowing them to intermingle. 

Then I laid down a mask (on the left) and a stencil (on the right) and made sure they were adhered well to the page.

I laid the assembly on my hot concrete driveway to dry.

Of course I didn't stop there.  I still had lots of blue paint on my brush, so I started another sun dyed fabric.

When I cleaned the brush, I dipped it in the water in which I had originally wet the fabric.  I had SO much paint left over, and not wanting to waste it, I decided to soak it up with some of the same bed sheet I was using.

Then it was time to create the background and use my stencils to create colorful marks in the fabric.

I laid a broken brick on the Fleur de lis stencil as the fabric dried, and I added

my stencil laden sun print to dry on the hot driveway.

Once dry, it was time for the reveal.

I have to admit this was quite the disappointment.

Lesson learned: do NOT use a stencil.  Instead use ONLY masks when creating sun dyed fabric.  Granted, these fabrics won't go to waste, because they can be cut and used as fillers, but I will never be able to use them as whole cloth in my art.

For those of you who came just for the rocking horse,

it's called Love-A-Bye Baby and normally sits in my office.

Thanks for visiting today.  Your visit is always welcome, even though I can't leave comments to those on some G+ blogs, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook.  For everyone else, I'll be by to visit, although it could take awhile because I wrenched and sprained my right wrist on Monday trying to catch a pan that fell from my hand, and now I'm typing with one hand.  If you are coming from Julia's, please leave your number.  Let's also hope Julia doesn't banish me because of this extra, extra long post.  Please take pity on the gimp, folks.