Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Material Fact: Rit Dye Fabric Dye

Fact:

If you're a fiber artist or just a sewer, then this material is for you! The only thing you have to do is be MEGA CAREFUL because this has just as an evil side as the India Ink.

The good thing is that the Rit Dye fabric dye is great for your fabrics if you can't find the right color fabric. There are 2 types of Rit Dye fabric dye: Powder and liquid. It varies in different colors and shades of colors. For example, if you're looking for a particular color blue, you'll see Navy Blue, Royal Blue, Evening Blue and the such.

Tip:

As far as accuracy of the color is concerned, don't always trust the box. Sometime you might get a lighter color or a darker color than what the box is portraying, so be careful.

Before you have ANY dealings with Rit Dye fabric dye, please follow these instructions just to save your carpet because once the dye sets into the carpet and it's deeply imbeded, you'll have to replace the ENTIRE carpet and it's very expensive to replace carpet.


Intructions:
1. When you're going to use Rit Dye, make sure that you have a special station set OUTSIDE in the yard where grass is and AWAY from any concrete or stone-like porch. Rit Dye stains!!!!!! Be concious of that!!!!

2. Make sure that you have a special clothes hamper in your special station because it can easily get on your clothes and you can track it on the carpet without you knowing about it. So put your clothes that you wore outside in that special clothes hamper when you were dealing with the Rit Dye so you can wash it later, do this for the liquid dye as well. Just make sure that you carry the ENTIRE hamper with you so the dye will stay on your clothes and won't track on the carpet.

3. Keep ALL Rit Dye and fabric dye, in general, outside due to is staining the carpet and possibly ruining your carpet.

Tip:

On a friendly note, please make sure that you follw these instructions because when water hits the floor where there is fabric dye accidently spilled, whether you knew or not, the water activates the dye within the carpet and it dyes the carpet that color. Keep your shoes outside as well just in case there is any dye on your shoes that might be there.

You think that you can vaccuum this up and be okay, but that's NOT the case whatsoever!!! You have to be MEGA, EXTRA careful in dealing with fabric dye of any kind, not just Rit Dye in general.

So please heed this warning. If you want to fork out serious cash to replace the carpet over tiny, colored dots from fabric dye, then be my guest. I'm just giving you a friendly warning^^

Anyway, I hope this helps^^

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Material Fact: Model Magic on Canvas/Canvas Fabric Material

If you're a mixed media artist that wants to try something a little unique with Model Magic, then I think I have an idea of how to use it.

I'm working on the Deadly Sin "Envy" at the moment and I wanted to sculpt out some green eyes with Model Magic. From what my tests are revealing, you might have to find a way of improvising a little. I've done 2 squares.

Tip:

I strongly suggest, as a professional artist, NOT to use Model Magic because it's another version of Play-Doh for kids. I'm using Model Magic because it's easy to use sculpt, it air dries overnight, and it has different colors.

I'm doing a 2-Day experiment with the Model Magic and the Canvas Fabric Material to see if the Model Magic will stick on the canvas perminantly.

DAY #1






  • For Square #1, I shaped a piece of Model Magic and used Liquitex Matte Medium, as glue, on the back and placed it on the canvas fabric material. This was done before the Model Magic was air dried.








  • For Square #2, I took another piece of Model Magic and shaped it. That will be let out to air dry overnight and I'll then apply Liquitex Matte Medium, as glue on the back and see how it will adhere to the canvas fabric material.



DAY #2



  • For Square #1, the Model Magic firmly stayed on the canvas fabric material perminantly.

  • For Square #2, the Model Magic dried and I tried gluing it with the Liquitex Matte Medium and it did not stay on. It had stick to the canvas fabric material, but it did not stay on for very long.




My conclusion for this experiement is the Square #1 proved to work by shaping the Model Magic and then add Liquitex Matte Medium while the Model Magic was still soft and shapable. So, before the Model Magic air dries, make sure you apply the Liquitex Matte Medium on the Model Magic then.








Fact: Model Magic




To be honest, I prefer NOT to use this material because it's a child's toy and it's mainly used for arts and crafts. Howerver, I will say that this should be the very last resort if you plan to go into art as a career choice. If for some reason that you have to resort to this, then that's fine. The benefit of using this material is that it's not messy at all, it air dries overnight, and when you sculpt something out of it, it's very soft and squishy like a sponge. You can also add some water to it like regular sculpting clay if it's needed.




Not only that, it comes in many different colors and it's very inexpensive to work with. As a professional, I strongly stay away from something like this. The only time that this would be appropriate is if you sculpt it in a professional matter and also you have a project that is due on a specific date and need to save time.




Again, this is a personal opinion and I'm coming from a professional stand point of view. My personal reason for using Model Magic for "Envy" is save time, not have a huge mess to clean up, and minipulate what I want on my artwork.







I hope this helps^^

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Material Fact: Charcoal Sticks on Canvas/Canvas Fabric Material

Fact:

If you plan to do a mixed media project with canvas material and charcoal sticks, then please read this first before continuing.

It's an awsome idea that you would consider doing a mixed media art project with canvas/canvas material and charcoal sticks, BUT ALWAYS TEST THEM OUT FIRST!!!! When I was getting ready to do my 7 deadly sins series on canvas, I knew what I wanted to use; however, without thinking, I didn't test out the actual materials that was using before starting.

So, my mom was concerned about the charcoal material smeering really bad when I would go into doing my wash. She suggested to do some research and thank the Lord that I did. When I did, mom suggested a some sort of "shelack", what she calls it, to see if the charcoal would smeer. Now, thanks to the previous class I had over at my school, the teacher there was teaching us on how to make our canvases from scratch, which leads to the canvas fabric materal.

Tip:
Keep in mind that when I say canvas fabric material, that material is specifically used for creating art canvases in terms of actual paintings and other art related projects. This fabric material is NOT for sewing whatsoever! The material is too rigid and rough to the touch and may screw up the sewing machine if you try it. So please, use the canvas fabric material for creating canvases.

Anyway, once I researched on how to handle this situation, it talked about using a matte medium type of media. So basically, I had this from my previous classes in school.


Liqutix Matte Medium:

Go to "Material Facts: Liquitex Matte Medium" blog for more detailed information about the material. Use this material for your canvas project for good protection of your project. I had a little bit of canvas fabric material left from my last class, before I left school, and I tested this theroy out myself.

I drew one eye on a piece of square of the material and I had drew another eye on a second piece of square of that same material. Here is my conclusion from this experiement is this:





  • With the first eye, if you brush over the product too swiftly, fast, and press hard, the charcoal WILL smeer greatly, which will leave you with a mess.






  • With the second eye, if you brush over the product very slowly at a steady pace and don't press hard at all, the charcoal WILL NOT smeer as much. Again, it will still smeer, but you will less likely have a mess to try and fix.


After I did these tests, I did one more experiment on both. Once both sets of eyes were dried from the matte medium, I tried painting over them with a white paint. They both proved to be successful regardless of the different results each of them gave from the previous experiment.



Once the matte medium dries, it will successfully not smeer when you rub your hands across the art project and you will not have any more worries about the charcoal smeering your project when you do a wash or paint.



Tip:



It's always best to smudge your charcoal lines before you use the Liquitex Matte Medium. This will help you reduce the affects of smeering greatly if you do this. Again, you may have still a little smeering, but if you heed the tips above, you should have little to no problems.



Okay, that's it for now. See ya later and have a great day^_^