Welcome to week 9 of the Surface Treatment Workshop. This week my sister Carolyn and I are experimenting with Fiber Paste. We used Golden Fiber Paste – I couldn’t find any alternatives that claimed to have the same properties. I read through the prompts in the book decided I was going to begin with printing on fiber paste.
I used a cheap sheet of A5 copy paper and skimmed a very thin layer of fiber paste over it with a wet palette knife. I let it dry for a couple of hours and prepared 2 photos in Photoshop ready to print onto the fiber paste. Now, my printer has been a bit temperamental of late so I wasn’t too sure how it was going to react to having Fiber Paste put through it – I was fully prepared for a paper jam, print errors and that nasty little flashing red light on the front of the printer. But to my surprise fiber paste went through the printer fairly easily…
Fiber paste has the feel and texture of hand made paper when it’s dry – it’s lovely! The prints printed out slightly softer and lighter in colour than they would had they been printed on photo paper. If you click the images to view them larger you can see the texture of the fiber paste through the prints.
The fiber paste ended up making the cheap copy paper very strong and flexible once the paste had dried. It is a lovely surface to paint on, draw on or stitch into. I LOVE fiber paste and I’m very pleased with how my fiber paste prints turned out! This is how they appear in my STW Sketchbook:
Next I simply painted a watercolour wash over some fiber paste:
The watercolour paint has highlighted the texture of the fiber paste quite well but here’s a macro view for more detail:
You can really see the texture of the fiber paste in this image! Next I did another watercolour wash over fiber paste but this time I overlaid it with some pearl mica once the watercolour had dried:
And I also did a macro view too so you can really see the texture of the fiber paste in detail:
In conclusion the end result of this weeks Surface Treatment Workshop is that I LOVE Golden Fiber Paste! I especially like printing on fiber paste. Once you’ve printed on fiber paste you can easily incorporate the fiber paste print into mixed media art, paint on it, draw on it, stitch into it – anything really! I will be doing more fiber paste prints…
Carolyn should be posting all her workshop samples this week so please do pop over and have a look! Next weeks workshop is focusing on drawing grounds, so I need to get my drawing head on….
This looks fun! I’ve never heard of fibre paste before!
Thank you Gill! I hadn’t heard of fiber paste before either and probably would never have tried it had it not been for this workshop… !
I love your work, printing and photos! I have some fiber paste but never use it. Your blog and Carolyn’s blog are very inspiring!
Thank you
Patricia
Thank you so much Patricia!
That stuff looks gorgeous, Evelyn! I love Golden products but haven’t got this one. I’ve got a pot of something similar that I bought years ago so perhaps I should resurrect it. Your prints are fabulous.
Shoshi
Thank you Shoshi! Do resurrect your pot of something similar – it would be interesting to see what it does…!
I have to try this!
Thank you Karen – it’s great stuff to use!
Beautiful work Evelyn!
Thank you Jodi!
Evelyn, this is wonderful (the fiber paste), and your work is so beautiful. I can think of many uses for fiber paste, and may just have to try some of them out!
Thank you so much for sharing your work here!
Thank you Lisa – it’s fun experimenting and learning with different art processes … !
WOW!! glorious! fun. so Inspiring.
glad your printer behaved Evelyn! I’d love to try this sort of thing, I could have…. with my old printer it was robust. the new one, is some kind of delicate fragile ‘princess!’
Thank you Debi – I loved doing the prints, my printer is quite old now and quite tough fortunately!
the older ones, are The sturdier ones for sure 🙂
I love these – you were brave to put that through your printer, but look what you got – wow. Thanks for sharing this with everyone.
Thank you Lynn! I felt I had to at least try to print on the fiber paste and I’m glad I did – sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind… !
That was really interesting, I’ve never heard of fiber paste before. it gives some very cool textures and it works with watercolour.
Thank you Sunnyfae! I hadn’t heard of fiber paste either till I started this workshop – but it’s lovely to print on and can add a different dimension to your art work… !
Love your results!!! I had no idea you could print on this texture. And love the pearl mica you added – where did you purchase the mica? I’d like to know more about it! Thanks Evelyn!! 🎨💕👍
Thank you Jill – printing on fiber paste is lovely, you just need to spread in on very thinly! The pearl mica I buy on Ebay from a UK supplier. Some call it mica powder but it’s the same thing I think. But it’s lovely stuff to use, very versatile and can be used with just about any medium you like!
Thanks for explaining the mica to me. I will look for it on Dick Blick or maybe my local craft store might have it! 😊
Never thought of this. I run archival tissue paper through on my Epson printer for my photographs that I use as symbols in my paintings.
Thank you Patricia – I love printing on Fiber paste and I may try your idea too – printing on archival tissue paper is a great idea… !