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| Tree Roots Transformed |
Rather than Quilting Along with Leah this week we are Painting Along with Leah. I have been painting, dying, stamping and inking fabric for over fifteen years. It is something I try, but am never seduced into focusing on for more than a day or two at a time. A friend once said if she were meant to sew her own clothes than why were there so many department stores? I feel the same way about taking the time to develop and use my surface design skills. Why bother when there are so many wonderful commercial fabrics out there? Of course the answer is for the precise reason Leah opted to paint a portion of her current goddess quilt - to enhance and improve the work in a way that stitching and piecing can not.
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| Close Up of Tree Roots after Painting |
I am a sucker for shimmer, so Leah's recommendation of using Jacquard Lumiere paints called to me. No surprise, despite my extensive collection of stencil paints, Seta Color paints, Shiva Paint Stix, fabric pens and dyes I didn't own any Jacquard Lumiere paints. I ordered and received a starter kit of paints. This way I would have 8 colors to play with.
What I quickly discovered is that the color in bottle is not what the color looks like on the fabric. I only had one green to choose from. I played with adding yellow to it. I tried adding blue. Nothing got the color I was looking for. If this had been a formal piece versus a practice piece I would have started with gold and added a hint of green in order to achieve a higher contrast with the background fabric. The paints did glide on quite nicely and stayed put versus bleeding into the fabric.
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| Fabric is White Muslin That Has Been Hand Painted With Heliographic Paints and then Enhanced With Free Form Leaves Painted with Jacquard Lumiere Paints |
I had extra paint left after completing the Tree Roots project. I added some black Neopaque paint to the green Lumiere paint. I was hoping for a deep leaf green but got a dark olive bronze shade instead. Rather than use a stencil as I did with Tree Roots, I simply free hand painted a series of falling leaves onto a fabric I had hand painted with heliographic paints years ago.
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| Close Up of Free Form Leaves |
The hand of the fabric where the Jacquard paint has been applied is pretty stiff. It is not so stiff that the fabric can't be folded or rolled. I do wonder if I would be able to stitch through it. That will be the next test.
You just made yourself a beautiful print!
ReplyDeleteThat fabric is amazing (maybe I've used that word too much, but it so fits!!!!)! Have no room here for any further expansion of textile supplies!!!! Marriage at risk!! Hehe!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work! I am new to painting on quilts, so now I want to order ALL the paints you mentioned. :)
ReplyDeleteI love how the colors melt into each other. It's lovely.
ReplyDeleteThere is always room for more textile supplies, Treadlemusic. I learned that listening to Paula Nadelstern. She lives in a tiny apartment in one of NYC's Burroughs and her quilts are large. She stores many of her supplies under the bed.
ReplyDeleteJessim, my favorite paints to work with when starting with white cloth are the Seta Color heliographic paints. They are the ones Mikey Lawler uses to create her Sky Dyes. They work like water colors AND if a section is blocked from the sun it works like a resist in batik - you get a white imprint.
Thank you for your continued words of encouragement.