Playing with Napkins

Years ago I was in a group where we exchanged napkins to use in our art. I never did anything with them. So as I was cleaning up my studio recently, and found them and some other papers in a box, I thought I’d see what I could come do with them.

I’m not used to using fabric or papers I didn’t create, so I wanted to make them mine by printing on them. I got out my gelatin plate and went to work. Here I’m using that cardboard to print that I used in this earlier post about printing with found objects.

I rolled paint on the gelatin plate, and stamped with the cardboard.

Then I placed the paper over the paint, and rubbed it down with my hand.

Then I pulled the paper off. You can see the yellow lines on the text paper.

Here are some napkins before and how they looked after I printed on them. It really makes the napkins my own, instead of just using them as is.

I also played with a piece of my own printed paper. See how I made it on this post. We are making paper cloth or cloth paper. Here is what you need.

• Substrate – I’m using canvas cloth
• Brush
• Water
• Matt Medium
• Paper to collage
• Plastic for table

I started by gluing down a couple of torn pieces of my paper.

I continued to add more pieces.

And more.

Then I ended up printing on top of the piece with that cardboard to push back everything. You can see how the colors changed.

Here are a couple other  pieces.

And the bunch together.

 

I’ve not made any of this for ten years. Here is a tutorial from 2010 where I also painted on top instead of stamping. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them. I’ll probably cut them up and put them on cards.

Now I need to get back to playing with fabric! Thanks for dropping by.

For some inspiration, check out Off The Wall Friday links.