This is apparently my month for challenges in the studio. First, the sewing machine eluded my ability to thread the needle, then my whole thermofax creation process fell apart.
After I spent an afternoon unclogging the nozzles on my just for the thermofax printer, I tried making some nice fish screens to use on the current piece. I decided to use the the new white screen because it's narrower than the old roll of green screen I have and then the problems began.
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| Fish art for thermofax screen |
Small summary of the thermofax process for those who aren't familiar with it. A thermofax is a quick and easy way to make a silkscreen by running graphite line art through the thermofax machine layered against the screen. The graphite ignites from the heat of the lamp in the machine and burns off the top layer of the screen exposing the little squares in the screen so that paint can be pushed through.
The first try didn't burn the screen at all. I ran it through 3 times and it burned so lightly that the screen slid around over the art and I got triple faint lines rather than one good solid line. So I went over the artwork with a thicker charcoal pencil. That burned a hole in the white screen. After a few deep sighs and breathing exercises, I ran that art through the thermofax with the green screen. That resulted in big blurry lines for the spirals. I decided to stop for the day, think about it and try again later.
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| green vs white screens of same art |
Here's where I am on the piece. I did yarn around the edges of the salmon stream and then started doing yarn around the edges of the fish and really didn't like how it looked. So I tried hand stitching but that didn't work so well what with the 4 or 5 layers of quilting cotton plus batting that I had to stitch through. After checking prices and reviews, I've ordered the low end Brother self-threading machine and will be seeing if that solves my stitch problem. At this point, I can only be really thankful that the show application deadline is the end of November so I may be able to finish in time despite all these issues. Wish me luck!
3 comments:
Liz - I have not used the new white screen, but I have heard you need to change the setting on the thermofax. Of course, I can't remember whether to use a faster or slower setting. You could contact Jane Dunnewold for more info.
Found Jane's comment on the white mesh: Since the white film is thicker it needs to run more slowly through the machine in order to expose properly
Jane's video about using the new white screen is one that I looked at. She says to go slower which is what I did when I burned through the entire screen. She is also quite adamant about having the slick side down which is opposite to the way I have used the green screens. I also got a difference on a firmer surface with the white screen. All of these are a few of the reasons why I'm going to set aside some time to play with the white screen and work out what changes I need to make.
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