Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Fabric Painting...........practice

I recently signed up for an on-line class, involving painting on fabric. I'll talk more about the class and the projects later, but for now I want to show you what I did this weekend. I watched the videos and while I wanted to dive right in to the project, I decided to do a couple of little sample bits first, to get the feel and to discover what products I liked best. I don't have the "floating" medium used by the instructor, so I wanted to test what I did have on hand.
I began by drawing a simple leaf, with paper backed fusible on the wrong side I cut these out and fused them to a background fabric.


All of the leaves would be painted using the same paints, but for each, these paints were mixed with a different medium. (Fabric sucks up paint very quickly, a medium is necessary, it gives you more time to work with the paint, move it easily and helps with the ability to blend the colours.)
This first leaf was painted using clear aloe-vera gel mixed into Seatacolor transparent paint. Isn't it amazing how just a little paint can transform fabric? I have played with, and talked about using Aloe Vera gel before, those posts are here


For the middle one I used a colourless extender made by Jacquard and the third was a mixture using an acrylic glazing liquid by Golden.


While this was not part of the class, I found that I learned a great deal from this simple exercise. In my next post, I'll tell you what some of those things were and show where I went from here.

14 comments:

connie said...

Amazing! I can hardly wait to read more. Thanks for sharing this!

Quilter Kathy said...

Very cool! You are having lots of fun play time :)

imquilternity said...

Sounds like a lot of fun! I like that you do all the experimenting so that when I'm actually ready to do the project, I already know how! BTW, I just love the look of your blog. It's perfect.

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

Love how these turned out and it's good to know the different mediums that extend the paint into the fabric.
Beautiful leaf, BTW.

XXOO~~
Anne

M and M plus 3 said...

How interesting, I've not painted much as you have here on fabric, nor have I heard of the different fabric mediums you've used. I can't wait to see what you do with your online class.

Needled Mom said...

Very pretty. It sounds like it was an interesting practice.

Sherri said...

Ok, we are twinning again! Sarah Ann Smith was here a few weeks ago to teach at my guild. She turned me on to lumier paints and I am trying to finish this next month's newsletter so I can finally sit down and play with them! ATC's had nothing to do with it...really! Would I fib to YOU? :D

Robbie said...

These are wonderful! Thanks for sharing your process...and I love seeing your Fliker site...all your wonderful work in one place!

Diane J. Evans said...

It's amazing what you do with a paintbrush -- these results are wonderful. Can't wait to be classmates with you!

Diane

Createology said...

Your leaves are beautiful and how interesting it is to read how you painted them with different mediums. Learning new and different techniques by taking classes is always a wonderful way to expand horizons. Blissful creating dear...

landscapelady said...

very good info - thanks I had never heard of using those mediums, I've just used the setcolor paints mixed with water. What is the advantage of them over water from your experience, do you think its' worth it to try and find the gel and other stuff - I wouldn't have a clue on where to get them but I imagine could find online but I really hate to pay shipping charges;)

sewnut said...

It was great to see the quilt in real life. Thanks so much for a very inspiring presentatation at the Oxford County Quilters Guild. Besides being lucky enough to see your newer pieces, and seeing some of the earlier work again.
You are inspiring, especially to see how successful "not knowing the rules" can be in releasing creativity!!!

Dawn said...

Do you know if the workshop you took is still available online?

Quilt Rat said...

I have no way to contact you Dawn.....you are a "no-reply" blogger...and no contact info on your blog....hopefully you will see this

the class IS still available here

http://www.craftsy.com/class/Painting-Pictorial-Quilts/39?_ct=sbqii-sqjuweho-dum&_ctp=1&rceId=1441824337234~74pba7pt

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