Forest Layers

This week I've been having a play, building up layers on a cotton fabric base, although you could use a base of heavy paper instead.
The process used some yarns, screen printing, a couple of stencils and couching stitching. Oh and I thought the forest needed some sparkle too!

Here is my finished picture, but you could use the same techniques and products and come up with your own unique picture. 

Screen printing can be messy so protect your surface. I like to use several layers of newspaper over a plastic sheet which gives a little give which helps the printing.

I used some yarn and some net from lemons to add design. Having taped them across the fabric I mixed some adva print pearl binder and  Adva-Print concentrated fabric colours brown and white. I then placed a screen printing screen over the fabric and a dribbled the mixed colour across the top area. 

Tips for screen printing:

Holding the screen firmly down with one hand, place the squeegee  (or an old plastic credit card) above the ink and, applying some pressure, pull it down the screen, taking the ink with it pull at a 45º angle  Repeat, and then put the squeegee to one side, being careful not to drip excess ink.

 Holding the fabric down with one hand, lift the screen up from the bottom edge and then away.

You can mix the Adva print colours to get the shade you want (I mixed a green to use next).

 When you have finished wash the screen with cold water. Scrub it lightly with a sponge or nylon washing-up brush to make sure you get all the ink out.

 Leave the screen to air-dry before printing again.

Once the screen printing was dry, I decided I wanted to have a little sky showing through the forest tree design. I mixed a little Brusho ost. blue with water and dabbed it onto the area I thought needed to be the sky. I added a little SprinkleIT   Iridescent Violet to the wet blue to give the effect of light sparkling through the trees.

I then started to build up the layers of the forest.
In my palette, I mixed a little Brusho moss green and a little Brusho thickener with some water to form a paste. 

I then dabbed this over some of the TCW "Jungle Vines" mylar stencil  Colourcraft do stock this so give them a phone call (01142421431) if you would like one

When dry, this is the picture so far:

Wanting to add more layers and create 3D, I put the fabric in an embroidery hoop and couched some yarn down.

I stood back to view the composition and was not entirely happy. I decided it needed some sunlight shining through part of the trees onto the forest floor.
 I mixed some thickened Brusho Yellow Ochre and dabbed it through the TCW "Burst" mylar stencil. This is the same as I used for the bag design a couple of weeks ago.
I added some SprinkleIT  Iridescent Gold to the wet yellow paint before I removed the stencil.

When dry, I ironed the design on the reverse to remove any creases. I did this on a makeshift "ironing surface" consisting of folded newspapers covered in foil so as to not get any paint or sparkle on my ironing board!

I then tried a mount on the design to check I was happy with the design. I decided to stop there.

What do you think?