SolarFast Printing

Last week, I was back at Linda's Studio B in Weiser.  We had decided to try experimenting with SolarFast Printing on fabric, as well as some fabric blueprinting.

Julie and Linda in Studio B

I had purchased a bottle of brown and black SolarFast paint, as well as the special film for negative printing to try.  I used their negative generator to print out a couple of photos to try.  I had one which was a close-up of tree bark and one of water reflections.

First, we started off by painting the paint on the fabric and then placing some opaque objects on top, covered that with a piece of glass and set it out in the sun to do it's thing.

Here's a piece where I put washers on the fabric.  This is the black paint, but it turned out really blue. (I wonder if they mislabeled the bottle?)

I really like how these two pieces turned out.  The one on the left is the brown paint with some faux gears and washers placed on it.  The other one is a mixture of the brown and black paint with some rubber rings placed on it.

This one below is a piece where Linda used the special film that you print on with the negative of a photo and place it on the fabric.  It should give a positive image on the fabric.  She did this one on green fabric with a mixture of avocado and brown paint (?).

Neither of my two photos turned out at all.  It was either not opaque enough, or I need to have more contrast in the photo to start with.  I will have to play with it some more to see what I can get to work.

Trische had great success using a Zig marker on Lutradur as you can see here.  She wrote the words on the Lutradur with a black Zig and then you get the negative on the fabric. She also drew some designs on the Lutradur.

We also played with using already prepared blueprint fabric.  It's the same idea.  Put opaque items on top of the fabric and put them in the sun to print.

Here are a couple of my blueprint fabrics.  One with washers, one with rubber bands and one with string.

I really like the fabrics with the washers and I need to work with that SolarFast film some more because I think it has some potential to make some nice textures.