Watercolour, Crayon, Ink...Fabric or Paper.....Just create!

A few years ago, I had shown a glimpse of my very first project/article for The Canadian Quilter. At that time, I was asked if that pattern/design would become available at some point. Back then it was available to all CQA members....today I am making it available to all my readers to play with however they choose.

The design was called "Celyn", the project was an easy to do crayon on fabric technique ( I have shown it before) as well as a variety of ways to add colour to fabric, whether it is with inks, paint, crayons, pencils or dye sticks....you decide how you wish to do it.

first....you can download the design itself here, it is a PDF, that when printed at actual size will give you something that is about 7.5" x 7.5" (perfect to fit in an 8" block) but you can, of course, enlarge or reduce it to meet your needs

here I will give an quick refresher on using the crayon method.........gather your supplies

Cotton, freezer paper, crayons, permanent marker, textile medium

Press the cotton fabric onto a piece of freezer paper to help keep it stable for the drawing and colouring process. I simply used a Sharpie ultra-fine tipped permanent marker....you don't need fancy pens, these work just fine. I have been using them on fabric for years.

once you have the outline traced, you can begin colouring with the crayons.... randomly apply browns, oranges and greens to the woody stem portion of the design and then move onto the leaves.

Don't worry about being too fussy, continue to layer, build and blend the colours until you have acquired the intensity you desire.

A variety of greens and yellows were used on the leaves and if you look closely at the "detail" photo below, you will also notice that the same red used in the berries, has been used in quick strokes up the center of the leaves to add more depth and interest.

Tip:  you may wish to “test” your crayon choices on a scrap piece of fabric to ensure it is the desired colour.

Once you have finished colouring, the crayon will need to be heat set. Do this by placing the crayoned fabric face down on top of a few layers of paper towel and press from the wrong side, using a dry iron. The heat from the iron will cause some of the colour to be transferred to the paper towel.

When you are happy with your colouring and have heat set it, the next step will be to "seal" it. With an inexpensive artist brush, gently apply a thin layer of textile medium directly over the crayoned area and allow it to dry. There are many brands of textile mediums on the market and can be readily found at an art supply store and even at some craft stores...it should say “Textile Medium” on the bottle

Using crayons as instructed above is only one of the many ways to play with this design.....you could use a variety of mixed media or perhaps use the design as an embroidery, applique, stencil.....whatever you like and however you wish to play.....ENJOY!

This weekend, I decided to play with this design as a way to practice my watercolour technique. I traced the design onto some good watercolour paper, used my dip pen to ink the outline and just had fun watching the colours move about and play together

Then through the magic of a digital scrapbooking program, I thought I'd check to see how it might look as a Christmas card