Back to reality

10:30 PM Monday, 5/12/2008
Back to reality again. I have, however, managed to unpack, launder and iron the pieces that came home with me. The final two days were full of work, including cleaning up the studios and packing, as well as the real work for our final project. I did not post anything on this on Thursday night because I was taping my first Thermofax screens with Gorilla brand tape. It’s a really neat technology that may have spoiled me against silk screening.
Here’s a picture of the 12 squares I dyed, two at a time,
using the same recipe from Carol but changing the primaries for each. I used three different yellows, four reds and four blues. I only made twelve samples, which is only a third of the possibilities. One set was saved as a control, and the other set was discharged, using either Thiox in print past, Thiox by immersion, or immersion in chlorine bleach. A couple were left in the discharge solution too long, and one lost the rubber band resist, but they are a good example of the differing results attainable. I did not do any screens with thickened bleach – something to try in the future. To the right is a fabric I machine stitched, discharged and overdyed while the stitching was still in place. This is a picture of the stitched fabric before gathering, discharging and dyeing.
Also still to try: wrapping fabric around a thick piece of rope and tying it tightly, and also illumination – replacing one color with another by discharging the fabric with Thiox containing a color that doesn’t discharge. One fellow student tried this, but was working on top of a color that wouldn’t discharge. However, the replacement color seems to sit on top of the original color without the transparency you’d expect. This is a blue on top of a yellow that did not yield a green. Very interesting, and could be hard to re-create.
Friday night most of our group went out to dinner together to a very nice Italian restaurant (Scali’s) near the hotels. That’s definitely a place to return to! Didn’t return to the room until almost 11, I think, so there was not going to be any posting done then. Got almost completely packed and managed to sleep in, relatively speaking, until 7:30. Then off to the airport to drop off my commute-mate and fellow student in time for her flight to the west coast, and I was on the road home before 10 AM. The return trip was harder, because I was more tired than I was coming out, but I got home in one piece. The greatest pain involved was refueling my truck after 430+ miles, for a mere $101.27! Yikes!!!
Thanks all, for looking. If you were in the class and I have posted any pictures I should not have, please let me know - you have my e-mail from the attendee list.