1/2 Price Sale still happening all weekend in store!

Our Summer Fabric Clearance is still going for the whole weekend! This gorgeous Rainbow Spirograph Homespun cotton is only $12.00 a metre!! an absolute steal!! 2 are availiable!
www.rainbowsendstudios.com  or Like us on Facebook and receive a further 5% discount in our social store!

50% off Summer fabric!!!!

Rainbows End has been working on new designs and is soon to stock winter fabrics in our store!! Including lovely Bamboo fleece and knits!! We have also been busy drawing up some "Boy" designs targeted at the little guy in your life. So in order to make way for all this Rainbows End goodness we  discounting all homespun cotton prints by a huge 50% Do not forget all Rainbows End fabrics are original hand created designs so you are getting the absolute bargain of the year "Be Quick" so not to miss out!!

Airbrushing to make a full colour Screen Print

I am lucky I have a four colour carousel for screen printing, if I feel inclined to do dozens of full colour prints! However as I often work in small quantities I also love to use my airbrush to achieve this. I also love the soft blending you get that is hard to achieve with a screen.

I am going to show you how to colour you black line prints this way;

This is my drawing Siani's World! and I have her exposed on a screen Printing with black ink will give me exactly this image.

This is my result a Siani's World Featured Edition She is printed on a piece of Sun Printed homepun cotton
In order to get the Sun Printed background with out it interfering with the image I cut a piece of blockout in the shape of the printed image

Then then sprayed on my sun colour and laid a lace stencil over it to develop in the sun

This is the result

As you can see some of the sun colour has spread under the stencil but this is not a problem as it can actually add some interest and depth to your finished design.

Using my original stencil I printed off four copies onto acetate transparencies You can use paer if you wish to do only a small amount of spraying, however it is a little more difficult to line up your colour seperations.

I decided which areas I needed to cut out based on which colours I would be using in the design In this case it was very simple
1. I cut the areas on the first one that I needed for skinn tone ie; legs, arms and face.
2. The areas for shoes and clothing.
3. The background heart shape

I then sprayed the back of my stencils with spray adhesive


Pinning my fabric to my drawing board I lined my stencil up with the black background stencil on the sun print. The colours I have used are sun and screen print paints with a mixture of print reducer and water mixed to the consistency of milk.

Spraying on the skin tone

Skin tone; the first spray
Lining the design up carefully I then sprayed the blue for the shoes and dress

Then I lined up the cut out heart stencil

Then sprayed the heart back ground 

This is all three spraying finished

It is now time to print the final black line screen print.

This is the finished print there are some small misses with the registration I often find this adds to the design However if you don't like it then you can add fine touch ups with your airbrush

So there it is! Just iron your print as usual to set it. You can keep your stencils to use again and again and of course they may also be used on a black screen to use on your carousel for large volume printing.

Next I am going to add full colour to a screen printed length That should be fun!

Special for Easter

One day only in the online store A special one off Sun printed Easter egg fabric This is the only one of these I have done It is on special for today 8/3/12 only and has a flat rate shipping charge of only $2.00 (Australian Residents only!) While you are there check out our other new additions to the store

Such as this gorgeous rainbow Spirograph. Weather has been so dull in Queensland lately we need a few rainbows!

Featured Editions

Feature Editions is a new hand printed product in the Rainbows End Online Store.  It is a two registration screen process of some of the Rainbows End Signature prints. The second registration adds colour and pzazz to the line drawing bringing it to sparkling life. These features are perfect as a focal point for patchwork or clothing. Some of the prints include a metric fat quarter of the back ground sun or block print. These little prints are competitively priced, starting at just $3.50 for a single small patch up to only $10.00 for a set including the MFQ .postage is only $2.00 flat rate within Australia.
Below is a series I have produced called Siani's world A little bit of whimsy perfect for bags, cushions, pencil cases or giols clothing. Hand printed love!!!!

Exclusive Vat Dyes Now Available In Australia!!

For some time in this country I have been trying to get hold of some vat dyes, mainly Indigosol and Indanthren. I had briefly seen them in operation at art school by the students in the year ahead of us. They were fazed out by the time it became our turn. After years of trying to track them down only to find original suppliers had gone out of business or sold up to someone else who never restocked I gave up and bought from overseas! I purchased Indigosol from India and Indanthren from Denmark and I was not disappointed!!!! They are divine!!!.

For dyers who are familiar with Indigo dyeing you will love this process It is Indigo in a spectrum of colours!, and is very possible to achieve the same beautiful oxidation marks.
The process is fabulous for batik as they are are cold process are boil proof and will not run even in a mixed dyebath, in other words you can over dye yellow or red in a bath of blue with no contamination of the colours it is also possible to add white fabric to the dyebath as well and get a true blue! A perfect medium for workshops.

Read our New Tutorial page on Vat Dyes here

And purchase our fabulous dyes here!

Spiro Delights

I have been playing around with spirograph designs You know the gorgeous spirals you used to make with those gear thingys when you were a kid?
Well I found a couple of sets of them and have been having lots of fun!!!
The result is some new fabrics have made their way into my store!!
You can find them here;

http://www.rainbowsendstudios.com/


Oh and the wonderful very colourfast Vat dyes Rainbows End has imported from Denmark will be added to our store next week as well. A How to use them page will be added right here in my blog!!!:)

Give away!!

Sorry this is a little late as I spent the weekend cleaning up storm damage from the previous weekend! So better late than never!

As I previously wrote ;this month Rainbows End will be providing a custom service the have your child's art work printed to either a fabric length or a custom dyed T Shirt.


 Just like this one, the design has been provided by my gorgeous 4 year old grand daughter Lila!

These are not digitally printed they are done the old fashioned way using colourfast pigment inks. Also all the dyes used by Rainbows End are either the sun print colourfast pigments or colour washfast boil proof vat dyes So you can be sure your item will not run in the wash and will be long lasting.

Not only am I offering a Tee custom created in your child size, completely FREE, but also the chance of buying a length of homespun cotton fabric at a discount of of 10% off the regular price.

Homespun custom lengths will retail at $18 per 50cms or $28 per metre. T Shirts will retail at $25.

I am still working out how to include the custom slot into my shop site So in the meantime if you wish to be in the draw

Simply like our facebook page and share this give away on facebook! All existing likers will be entered in my draw if they SHARE this giveaway on their wall.

For my readers who do not have a facebook account simply leave a comment here and link your blog to this post :)

The draw is, on the 11th of February!!! Good luck

February 1st will see a new giveaway!

February 1st marks the beginning of our new trading year, Christmas and school holidays out of the way Rainbows End will be back in full swing!!

This is the latest project I have been developing

KINDER DESIGNER!!

This is were you get your child to make a drawing for me to develop into a screen I will then screen it to a fabric length or a T-shirt in your child's size. This will be a new custom service by Rainbow's End and will give you the chance to see your child's artwork developed into an original, personal, fabric design!

Our giveaway announced on February 1st will have something to do with this new venture!!

Stay tuned!