Fabrications Retreat - Kerr Grabowski's class "Deconstructed Screen Printing"

First off, this is an extremely picture heavy post. I tried cutting down on it but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So you are warned, I apologize if I just strangled your dial-up connection...

Like I promised, I'm keeping on with the posts about the happenings at the Fabrications Retreat. I'm starting off with the class I was in. I took Kerr Grabowski's Deconstructed Screen Printing and this is definitely something that I am going to keep up with, I'm way hooked on it.

Kerr doing a demo

My work has been turning more toward surface design over the past year or so. I'm not sure why the shift happened but I decided to roll with it and thought Kerr's class would help me figure out if I really loved it or if it was a passing fancy. I think its love...

Here are some of the fabrics that I printed:

This one will get more layers once its washed out.

Same fabric from above but at a different angle.

This sort of looks out of control but its not. It was really wet when I shot it so I'm really interested to see how it looks once I wash it out.

I don't think I'm going to cut this one up, it wants to be a whole piece.

I printed 14 half yard pieces all together (11 are shown above) so that's a good 7 yards to work with. At the rate I work and scale I prefer, that will keep me busy for an insane amount of time. Although I think I'm going to keep printing fabric. Hopefully I'll be able to get to some more of it in the next few weeks.

And I wasn't the only one who dove into it and was quite pleased to be covered from head to toe in dye. Check it out:

Jan and Linda

Jan was working in an awesome palette of blues and purples.



Linda's colors were really saturated and rich.

Von printed several cool pieces, with lots of layers.

Teri printed many fantastic pieces, one of which she generously shared a
piece with me. This tone on tone piece had really nice depth to it.

Janice hard at work and having fun.

Margot worked in paler tones and made very delicate prints.

Peg did a lot of printing on sheers that created some really cool depth to the fabric.

Pat and Patrice working away

Patrice pulled this print on paper, totally drool-worthy.

A small fraction of the work that the class produced. By the end of the week the whole room had fabric pinned up all around it.

I loved Kerr's class. I'm a pretty independent student and her teaching style was really conducive to that. She's easy going, full of knowledge and while she teaches you things, she leaves you enough room to absorb it into your own style. I highly recommend a class with her.

I've got three more posts planned, one for Laura and Lyric's class as well as the swag I scored during the marketplace and shop hop. They'll be along soon.