Lazy afternoon printing

One of my favorite things to do on a sunny lazy afternoon is to make prints in the backyard. I get some sun and I get my creative energy flowing.

I always have scrap muslin and canvas lying around my art studio to use for such an afternoon.
By art studio, I mean a small room that really is only big enough to house the vast amount of art supplies I have. The room isn't usable so I work a lot outside and also I use my washer and dryer as an art table.

I purchased some Jacquard inks and tie dye spray colors and made a stencil out of clear contact paper and viola….canvases that I might eventually make into pillows or tote bags with leather straps. I have so many ideas, I can't keep up with them!


First I did stencils, then dropped ink, then sprayed them. I used scrap pieces to blot the excess inks.

This is the blotter piece of canvas. 

This is the final work, ink drops, some negative space from the stencils and over sprayed with hot pink tie dye inks. 

Just some ink splatter. 

More ink splatters. 

Coffee filters, washable markers, salt and water

I like to make prints with what ever I have in the house.

I took some old coffee filters from a broken chemex and drew all over them with washable markers. I find the cheap store brand makers are the best. I didn't have any particular image in mind that I wanted to draw, I was just more focused on the colors blending together well.

Honestly I do not have the best drawing skills, I can't draw still life, people, plants or animals. Or even buildings. There my secret is out.
What I am good at is color and shapes. I also love abstract art and I excelled at abstract painting class while everyone struggled and I struggled in real life painting while everyone else succeeded.


The first step is just drawing on the coffee filters. I cut them in quarters and I cant remember why…
I used hot pink, orange, red, shades of light blue and greens.

In this step I took an eye dropper and just dropped water on the areas with the most color overlapping. 

My workspace also doubles as a washing machine!

This is another color study I did, this was browns, pinks, red & purples. This one I used salt on and the spray bottle instead of the eye dropper. 

The spray bottle also doubles as a good weapon against cats (named Jack) who like to thwart any making of art. 

These are what both of them looked like after a water. I let them dry on a another coffee filter and some rag towels. 

This was another color study I did the same night. They almost had a tye dye look to them. I did 4 different patterns and then 4 different color studies. Then added water with an eye dropper and some salt. 

In the end Im not sure what Ill do with them. But its just fun and relaxing to just create.