Two Art Quilts at Once?

     Even though I'm still working on my rock, monk, sun, quilt, SAQA has an exhibit coming up with a deadline in February that I want to enter. I thought I should get things together for this new quilt while I still work on the monk quilt, too.
     I have an idea brewing that involves a background using a pattern I developed a while ago from a can of black beans. Yes, black beans. I had a thermofax screen made from the pattern and several other screens made from other patterns I played around with in Photoshop Elements. (There are several good places where you can order custom made screens: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SmudgedTextilesShop   and http://www.lyrickinard.com/thermofax.html  I had never done any printing with the screens before so I was hesitant to do it. But after watching some YouTube videos Thermofax printing Part 1   and  Thermofax printing Part 2   and Creating Repeat Prints   and How to Wash a Thermofax Screen   and reading some articles in Quilting Arts Magazines, I determined this was the best way to get the results I wanted.
     In the videos listed above, Lynn Krawczyk shows to put the paint on the screen and use a sponge brush (cut off) and then just rub the brush around on the screen to spread the paint. I liked that idea and it worked well for all my screens except for one of them. Here are the patterns that the method gave good results. I used a combination of colors of regular acrylic paints and a little Jacquard Lumiere Paint, also.

Three prints on a torn piece of a t-shirt

Anyone guess what this is a pattern of?

I'll post the answer tomorrow.

I tried doing repeats. Could start a trend of "Put A Monk On It!"

But, for the black beans, the pattern was too detailed and the sponge brush method lost all the details. I experimented with different paint thicknesses, but to no avail. So then what I did was go to the old fashioned method of printing for this particular screen. I spooned the paint along the top of the duct tape and used a credit card to spread the paint down the screen. And it gave a perfect print with all the details.

Black beans and rice anyone?

So now that I know I can print it. I'm going to order the paint I need and plan out my new quilt and get back to work on my monk, rock, and sun quilt.

I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can see other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you visited.