Creative Group at the Guild

Today was our Creative Group day at the Embroiderers Guild and I showed them how to do marbling using the shaving cream method and to colour it we used food colouring.
You can use other better inks but we chose to use food colouring to experiment.
Now don't all panic- the colours do stay true---I have some that I did about 6-7 years ago and it has not faded a bit.
If you are unsure how this is done-you need a can of shaving cream -the cheap unscented one is good enough.
First shake the can of shaving cream to get it all mixed up and then spray it into a small styrene foam meat tray that the meat at the supermarket comes in.
Don't make it too thick as this is wasteful.
Next you use a spatula to level it out and then put a few drops of different colours on top of the foam.
Then using a skewer swirl it around to get a design.
****** add on*****
Next place the fabric and paper onto the design and gently rub the back so that the colour transfers to the paper etc.
When you have done that gently lift it off and don't be scared because it will look terrible.
Next lay it on the table and with a scraper remove the shaving cream by scraping it off and the design is left behind on the paper.
You may have to wipe any residue off with a paper towel.
I have 4 food colours-blue-green-yellow and rose and one of the other ladies had black.
All these prints were taken off the original spray of foam and if you are not careful you can end up with mud.
The first picture is the first print that I did and it is on handmade paper and has turned out very strong.





The next one is on cotton fabric and is the second print--I just stirred it around a bit more with the skewer-----



This is the 4th print and what I did here was completely mix the foam up and I ended up with a pale green base so I added a few more drops of rose and green and also some black and made a design with the skewer.
I was unsure how this would turn out but what the heck.
Wow how good is this---------------



So I added some more yellow and blue and swirled the skewer again-the paper that I used was a cream hand made paper---------------

This one was on white card stock-----------------

Now starting to get muddied colours again this is cream hand made paper--------------

On this one I added a few squirts of white shaving foam on top and blended it in with the skewer----------

A little bit more white shaving cream was added and it gave me some lovely effects---------

This was the final print on a white card stock and it is very delicate-

Finally I used my Martha Stewart flower punch and cut out a few flowers to show the girls what they can do with their samples.

You can see the positive and the negative flowers. All in all I think I showed them a great demonstration