Tag Archives: pour painting

Finding Surface Designs

I lifted the lid off a cast iron pan after allowing it to cool for cleaning and discovered this…

cast-iron-pan-art
cast-iron-pan-art-detail

At first I thought – Oh, that’s cool, in a rusty, creepy sort of way, and then I looked again and thought, it looks familiar. I remembered coming across an old painting while I was organizing the new studio space… I’m not sure if you can tell from these photos but the texture and some of the shapes look much the same!

watercolor-run-painting

The watercolor was done on paper and the technique was more – just let the paint flow (pour) than actually brush painting. I’m not sure how the tiny dots were made but I really like the textured appearance. After it dried I rotated it 180° and it made me think of coral below the sea. Cast iron, paper… next, get out the fabric and textile paints!

Making Fabric, sort of…

I have been playing with a few fabric design ideas; some are hand painted, others are completely designed on the computer and I have scanned/photographed my hand painted fabric and altered them using software filters. I’m also collaborating with a talented artist (more about that later) and having pieces printed by Spoonflower.

orc sports sample blue

Speaking of Spoonflower – fellow blogger and artist Joanna Mack, The Snarky Quilter has written a couple blog posts about her experience after ordering fabric pieces from Spoonflower. You may want to hop over and read what she has to say. I appreciate SQ doing the research on a few other companies as well, and sharing her thoughts and results.

For the following pieces I used water thinned acrylic paint and an acrylic sheet (aka Plexiglass or Perspex) and created poured “paintings” that I photographed with the intention of having printed on fabric or using as inspiration for hand painted pieces.

plexi paint 1
plexi paint 2
plexi paint 4
plexi paint 3

Below are three designs I’m submitting for consideration to the Andover Fabrics and SAQA Golden Hour fabric line project. Whether any of my designs are selected or not I’m looking forward to seeing other entries. Have you combined fabric, paint, and computer software to design your own fabric?

Breeze
Created on the computer
Cloud Dance
My hand painted fabric after being altered with a filter
Dapple
Hand painted fabric