Perhaps The MOTHER of all projects

This week I am trying to hide out in a timeshare in Sedona, Arizona (I love this place).My goal.. to create 60 feet of one of a kind fabric on which I will add a painted image of the historic Route 66 highway from Chicago to Los Angeles. The obvious first question would be WHY? This (future quilted map) will exhibit in support of 60 or more quilts currently being created by dozens of talented American artists. All quilts will reflect and honor some highway location of the artists choice. I can hardly wait. Individual quilts are due to be finished June 15th. (I have my quilt of Chicago done thank goodness).. NOW the MAP. I must admit as I start.. I am asking myself WHAT WAS I THINKING when I cooked up this plan? I admit I do believe a 8 state map will support the surrounding quilts to make a spectacular exhibit... so I'm reminding myself of that as I begin. I begin with six 10 foot pieces of white PFD... plus one 6 foot piece of same on which I will ultimately create a small map version before THE BIG ONE. I'm creating a heliographic paint mixture of Setacolor transparent paints available from Dharma Trading website ( buttercup and violet ). This combination being on opposite sides of the color wheel, will create a warm golden brownish fabric. First the mix...

I roughly mixed 3 parts buttercup yellow with 1 part purple. Looks like chocolate to me. Then water slowly added and stirred in.

Before I jump in to saturate large fabric strips, I tested with small ones and made (

measured) adjustments to paint ratios. Strips tested and dryed with my hair dryer. (I don't have time to wait for natural drying) Once happy with the test strip, I saturated the large pieces of white fabric with tap water, lightly squeezed out excess before leading to trays of paint for 'mock dyeing.'

Now to shallow trays where some paint was already waiting. Fabric added, scrunched, massaged, squeezed in paint, etc. till the look was generally overall saturated.

This photo shows only 2 of the 6 10ft fabric strips. I let these soak for 2-3 hours occasionally checking and squeezing color into areas that was minimally colored. Over time I noticed some of the paint pigments separated a wee bit ( I liked that) and I could see modeling already starting to take place. After 3 hours of sitting indoors, I chose to take the fabric off the trays on onto plastic tarp material placed on an outside patio area... under sparcely leafed shade trees where limbs and leaves were moving slowly in breeze. This is heliographic paint that will be affected where sun hits it. With heliographic paint.. pigment tends to move to where sun is hitting it's surface and moves away from highly shaded areas like under the wrinkles. I thought this would be a great/fun experiment and knew the fabric result would be interesting. Crazy girl, you say. maybe yes. I just knew it would be interesting. As some say... go big or go home. I'm taking a risk. Life is short :-)

A close look at this shaded fabric is already starting to reveal some further separation of pigments.... I see some purplish areas, some more golden and brownish areas. I'm excited. Click on photos for closeup. This process took 2 days to get test strips, large fabric pieces painted. Once dried, I will heat set with a dry cotton setting iron... and then get ready to create images on the finished fabric.