Fabric School Confidential
So, many of you may know that I am a beginning student at a fabric school here in the bay area. It is a professional development course that trains artists in specific techniques used in the textile printing industry, as well as techniques used in producing designs for print on wall papers, bedding, wrapping paper, etc. It's a two year intensive program - something kin to a masters in textile design... and at this point I'm reeling with excitement and also amazement at how much the materials cost. No designer shoes for me for awhile!
For those of you who are interested in keeping up with my exploits or those who are just curious about what kind of things you learn in fabric school, I'll be posting highlights from our work here. Additional photos will be in the photo section of my Multiply.
Assignment 1:
Our first assignment is to go out and procure the world's longest and hardest to find list of professional art supplies. This sounds simple enough, but many of the items on our supply list were very hard to find, expensive, and a few of the gouache paint colors were discontinued. A couple of the items involved driving way out to a remote store off the usual beaten path.
The good news is that I managed to get 90% of my supplies (all the important ones) and managed to finish the assigned color sheets within 2 days of class. I am still waiting on the required books I ordered to arrive from Amazon - I normally like to shop locally, but given that I had already burned up the pavement tracking down ANYONE who had Chinese Orange gouache in any brand, I decided to relax, save on the gasoline, and order them from the internet. So there. I'm a fast reader - I can read that required chapter the day of class!
Secondly, we were required to make 2 or more sheets of color swatches using the colors of gouache paint that we bought. The colors had to be laid down full strength and then tinted with white in various values:
This process took about 5 hours for 12-18 colors of paint. The first sheet took a solid 2 hours, the other 3 went much faster. This might seem to many of you (and at first to myself) as either a big old review or a mighty waste of time, but it's really not. It forces you to become familiar with the behavior of each and every color in your palette.
Gouache in particular, as a heavily pigmented opaque watercolor, does some unexpected things sometimes when you add white to it. For example, Havannah Brown is a rich red brown when used full-strength straight from the tube... but add white and it gradually turns mauve and then light lavender! There are a number of gouache colors that are "magic" this way... Burnt Sienna makes a lovely flesh tone if you add only enough white.
Making one of these swatch sheets is very much like knitting a gauge swatch for those of you who are into knitting.
This is a photo of the finished swatch sheets - they bear a strong resemblance to those paint chips you get at the house paint store, don't they? Well, it's the same idea.
Who knows what we'll be doing next week - our instructor is very much into teaching patience and this includes giving out no secrets as to the next week's work! Understandably, this makes me focus on the assignment at hand, but it also drives me nuts with speculation!
I wonder if we'll be painting on that clear sheet of acrylic next? Of if we'll be copying one of those mid-century modern fabric designs out of "The Fabulous Fabrics of the 50's" book that I ordered for class?
For those of you who are interested in keeping up with my exploits or those who are just curious about what kind of things you learn in fabric school, I'll be posting highlights from our work here. Additional photos will be in the photo section of my Multiply.
Assignment 1:
Our first assignment is to go out and procure the world's longest and hardest to find list of professional art supplies. This sounds simple enough, but many of the items on our supply list were very hard to find, expensive, and a few of the gouache paint colors were discontinued. A couple of the items involved driving way out to a remote store off the usual beaten path.
The good news is that I managed to get 90% of my supplies (all the important ones) and managed to finish the assigned color sheets within 2 days of class. I am still waiting on the required books I ordered to arrive from Amazon - I normally like to shop locally, but given that I had already burned up the pavement tracking down ANYONE who had Chinese Orange gouache in any brand, I decided to relax, save on the gasoline, and order them from the internet. So there. I'm a fast reader - I can read that required chapter the day of class!
Secondly, we were required to make 2 or more sheets of color swatches using the colors of gouache paint that we bought. The colors had to be laid down full strength and then tinted with white in various values:
This process took about 5 hours for 12-18 colors of paint. The first sheet took a solid 2 hours, the other 3 went much faster. This might seem to many of you (and at first to myself) as either a big old review or a mighty waste of time, but it's really not. It forces you to become familiar with the behavior of each and every color in your palette.
Gouache in particular, as a heavily pigmented opaque watercolor, does some unexpected things sometimes when you add white to it. For example, Havannah Brown is a rich red brown when used full-strength straight from the tube... but add white and it gradually turns mauve and then light lavender! There are a number of gouache colors that are "magic" this way... Burnt Sienna makes a lovely flesh tone if you add only enough white.
Making one of these swatch sheets is very much like knitting a gauge swatch for those of you who are into knitting.
This is a photo of the finished swatch sheets - they bear a strong resemblance to those paint chips you get at the house paint store, don't they? Well, it's the same idea.
Who knows what we'll be doing next week - our instructor is very much into teaching patience and this includes giving out no secrets as to the next week's work! Understandably, this makes me focus on the assignment at hand, but it also drives me nuts with speculation!
I wonder if we'll be painting on that clear sheet of acrylic next? Of if we'll be copying one of those mid-century modern fabric designs out of "The Fabulous Fabrics of the 50's" book that I ordered for class?