STITCH THEN PAINT Posted on 28 Sep 17:22 , 0 comments
This last July at our retreat in Sisters Ruth Bass was our fearless leader as we played with some of her artbox supplies. The concept: Stitch It Then Paint it. If you've been following along for any length of time you will have read several different posts and had some journal peeks as I explore this process.
Some conclusions ...
Fabrics: PFD (prepare for dye) or batiks works best. It's the high thread count that helps achieve most consistent results as well as having a luminous quality creating a reflective property to your art piece. Up until this time I've been playing and exploring techniques trying to "develop my hand" with muslin as a foundation. Looking back, I say, "Jump in and go for it!" The quality of your supplies really makes a difference in the final outcome. Perceptions can be skewed with a less than quality foundation material and supplies, and in the end you'll probably spend less if you start right off with good paints, fabrics, and other color mediums.
Paints: I love the Stewart Gill paints which are available from Artist Cellar. My favorites are Colourise: fully saturated color ... and ... METAMICA: yummy metalics ... and what a very soft hand when the project is all finished.
... our play table ...
As you can see we played with other coloring agents ... fabric ink markers, colored pencils, Shiva oil paint sticks, and a couple of different options for simple fabric dye techniques.
The bottom line: the best part about our mini-workshop was the sharing amongst all the members of our group as we set aside time and gave ourselves permission to play. It was so easy to paint our already-stitched-out designs I might yet have a Baltimore Album quilt ... just paint it rather than doing all the applique ??? Hmmmm ... I know - not sure there would be much of a time-savings but it's fun to think about it the possibilities.