Flour paste

This week I played with flour paste resist hoping to find a way to faux batik Kirk's hand painted backgrounds. These were some not so good cotton hand dyes that I used to play on. I was looking for a very subtle crazed effect in a dark blue gray tone. I was very worried about over doing it...so unfortunately I am not enthused about my results on the large pieces. I look at them and they are too tentative!

But on Kirk's background it is just right! When his buds show up and catch a fish it will be documented as a fish print in the center. Too much crackle and it can distract from the fish.

I also did some stenciling on a piece that I had saturated with spray starch and then let dry. I wanted to see if it helped with the dye bleeding. I had very little bleed but I got sloppy (tired) and started brushing instead of pouncing... pushing dye under the stencil. I have some oil paint sticks and will stencil another layer. The fabric is really as weird as this photo looks...I think my blue dye went rouge and there is poor light today.