Loving Instant Potatoes

Finished Fabric

My last post featured the beginning process of using Instant Potato Flakes as a resist. It was messy but the results are beautiful!

Dried Potato Resist

Here you can see how the paste has dried. It took 3 days including putting outdoors in the sun on the last day. Notice now the fabric has curled. I had it pinned down but the tension from the drying pulled the pins out.

Notice how irregular the marks have become. As the paste dries it pulls away from the fabric around the edges and makes beautiful markings.

Once the potato paste was dry I applied the thickened dye. I used a Pro Chem Black 609 and a very thick print paste. Due to the extreme texture of the surface, I had to use a short bristle brush and dab the dye paste on.

You can see how the dye is seeping through the marks made when the paste was dry.

This picture is still the back of the unprocessed fabric but it looks the way I thought the piece would look when finished.....not so.

After 48 hours I folded the fabric up and baked in the oven set at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes. The entire house smelled like mashed potatoes.

Finally I just could not wait any longer and decided to wash things out. It was cold and windy outside but that's where I had to go for this job. I laid the fabric on the grass and soaked it good with running water. I used a plastic spatular to scrap off the paste and finally resorted to the bondo scraper as this paste really clings.

We have had very chilly weather and I don't think I had kept the fabric warm enough as there was lots of dye run off and it back dyed the fabric but the color is beautiful. Look at the exotic marks. I see all sorts of little people, animals, plants etc.

There are lovely violet markings as well. I have been working in such a loose way that I never know if I can repeat something but I'm planning to work with this more and see what happens.

So here we are back with the finished fabric. I'm not sure what is next but I do plan to make this into a finished piece. I'm thinking it needs friends.

Thank you for visiting and your comments are very welcome!

A Good Use for Instant Potatoes

Ingredients for Potato Resist

Liquid Starch - Potato Flakes - Water

Last year I shared my experiment with flour paste resist. It produced beautiful results but I was not satisfied with the consistency of the paste and have not taken time to tinker with the mixture. I wanted something that was easier to spread and would cover a larger surface area without having to make multiple batches.

This week I found a formula for a resist mixture which uses instant potato flakes and liquid starch. I had purchased the ingredients sometime ago but had not tried the technique so I gathered the items pictured above, pinned a large piece of washed muslin to my table and "got things cookin'."

Potato Resist

2 cups water

1 cup instant potato flakes

1 tablespoon liquid starch

I doubled these amounts and used 4 cups water, 2 cups flakes and 2 tablespoons of starch.

Bring water to a boil and add flakes stirring regularly.

Stir and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and add starch and continue to stir for several minutes until lumps are gone. Stir with a spoon or mixer.

If you want a less stiff mixture, return pot to heat and stir in more water. I added almost 2 additional cups a little at a time and then used a small handheld mixer to really get a smooth consistency.

Allow this to cool before applying.

Tools for spreading potato mixture.

Here you can see some of the tools I choose to apply the resist mixture and to make marks into the mixture. There is a chopstick, 2 yellow bondo scrapers, a plastic knife, a stippling brush - tried using the end, and a red edger used when painting around edges of windows and molding. I ended up using the larger yellow bondo scraper.

The Blob!

You can see from this image the approximate stiffness of the mixture. It is like nice whipped potatoes.....Steve McQueen would be proud. (Get it? THE BLOB)

With the double batch I was still only able to cover half of the 43" x 43" piece of fabric. I might have been able to spread it more thinly but as the fabric gets wet and heavy it is more difficult to move around without stretching the fabric and creating wrinkles.

Here you can see two shots of the marks I made on the fabric. The lines were made using the chopstick.

Dots?

These marks were made with the blunt end of the paintbrush. I was attempting to make dots but that did not work. I also made quick strokes with the chopstick that was my attempt at dots and I made some circles with the end of a bamboo brush which is not pictured.

The piece is now drying and I will add dye as soon as the resist is dry. I'll be reporting back with the results.

****For those of you who don't remember THE BLOB, it was a 1950's (1958) monster movie starring Steve McQueen. Those were the days when monsters were sort of funny and rubbery and didn't totally naw anyones head off. What were they thinking? Didn't they know they were monsters? The trailer for the movie said: Beware of the Blob! It creeps, and leaps, and glides across the floor. Big Deal. Where's Freddie?

Thank you for dropping by and spending time with me. If you try this process please let me know.