Final Prints

I went to my last class in clay printing last Monday.  The teacher will continue for a few more days, but my feet gave out.  I have plantar fasciatis, or heel spurs, due to years of standing on my feet while nursing.  We recently remodeled our house and I spent 6 months walking on concrete, and now we have hardwood floors, so my feet are really sore.  This class was held in a room with concrete floors, and involved hours of standing, so for now I'm done.

This is one of the last prints I made.  The one on the left is with raymee, then the middle one is heavy pellon, and the last one on the right is sheer.  I painted the clay with burnt umber slip, then used a syringe to make the x's.  You can see a bit of the previous print coming thru with the blue color.  This is one thing I love about this method, you get colors from your past prints if you want to, simply by applying less slip to cover it.

Here is a closeup showing some of the clay slip left in the fabric.  I have sprayed this with Thompson's water seal to keep the clay in it, and so far it's working out.  The water seal does give it a slightly heavier feel, but I used a lot, not knowing what is ideal here.

I made this print by painting a rectangle in blue, then using the syringe again for the black.  I didn't use any paint on the rest of it, and was happy with this.  The silk sheer on the left has the clay left in it, which I sprayed with Thompson's.  The piece on the right (again silk), I washed out just to see if the colors held up.

Here's a close up with the clay left in.  All this is in preparation for some more work on my construction series, percolating in my mind.
We are leaving tomorrow to visit our daughter in Pacific Grove, then up to San Francisco to see the American Craft Council show, hoping there's some fiber represented (and of course glass for Ted)