Classes - Expressive Fiber: Surface Design

Expressive Fiber: Surface Design

Please contact the instructor for classes planned to meet your specific needs. The dyes used are for use on cotton, rayon, and silk fabric. Expressive Fiber: Surface Design classes are intended to give students short introductions into some of the wondrous ways to add color and pattern to fabric. Classes listed demonstrate some of the ways of grouping surface design topics for 1-5 day classes.

	CLASS SECTIONS
		Expressive Fiber: Surface Design
		Expressive Fiber: The Art Quilt

	LECTURES
		Read lecture summaries

	CLASS & LECTURE FEES
		See the class and lecture fees

Surface Design Intensive

Length: 5 days, depending on topics to be covered.
Level: Everyone welcome.

Expressive Fiber: Surface Design Intensive will give students information about how to dye and paint the colors they need for their unique visions. In addition to learning to immersion-dye and to paint with dyes, students will experiment with printing, resists, discharges, silkscreening, and the application of metallic foil. Students will leave with luscious useable yardage, but more importantly, with the information necessary to dye what they need in the future. (Class fees)

Coloring Outside the Lines: Fiber Reactive Dyes 101

Length: 1-3 days (one day if only gradations OR spontaneous dyeing is covered).
Level: Everyone welcome.

Play with color in the dye bath and recapture that pleasurable feeling of opening a new box of crayons on the first day of school. This introduction to dyeing with fiber reactive dyes will open up a world of possibilities, expanding your color confidence and palette. Topics in this 1-3 day class may include dyeing in a gradated sequence to obtain controlled shifts of values or hues, low-water immersion dyeing for spontaneous effects, and manipulating low-water immersion dyeing to obtain multi-colored yardage. (Class fees)

Brush, Stamp, and Roll

Length: 2-3 days.
Level: Everyone welcome.

Students will experiment with thickened dyes to paint and print on fabrics. We'll make our own stamps, cut simple silkscreens, print with found objects, and experiment with monoprinting in addition to painting with brushes and sponges. (Class fees)

Simply Silkscreen

Length: 1-2 days.
Level: Everyone welcome.

Silkscreening is a satisfying way to produce fabric with repeat designs. In this 1-2 day class, you will learn to make strong graphic images with incredibly simple tools such as masking tape, freezer paper, and inexpensive, pre-assembled silkscreens. Students will develop their own designs and experiment with applying them to fabric with media as diverse as textile paint, thickened dyes, foil adhesive, and discharge paste. (Class fees)

Irresistible Resists

Length: 3-5 days.
Level: Everyone welcome.

Surface design isn't just about where the dye goes, but also where it doesn't go. In this series of classes on resists, students will produce compelling cloth using a variety of the resist methods listed in the classes below. (Class fees)

Fold, Poke, Clamp, and Wrap

Length: 1-2 days
Level: Everyone welcome.

Explore resists involving fabric manipulation in this class. We'll clamp yardage, tie it, sew it, and wrap it onto poles to prepare it for dyeing or overdyeing. (Class fees)

Liquid Resists

Length: 2-3 days
Level: Everyone welcome.

We'll experiment with a variety of resist solutions, including corn and potato dextrin and commercial solutions. (Class fees)

Vanishing Acts: Discharging Dye

Length: 1-3 days
Level: Everyone welcome.

Safe discharge chemicals can be used in solution or as a paste to selectively remove or transform areas of color from dyed yardage. Students will learn the basics of safe discharge techniques and learn to combine techniques we use for applying thickened dye (silkscreening, painting) and for readying fabric for resists (fabric manipulation, liquid resists) with the discharge process. (Class fees)