Tag Archives: resist

Painted Fabric – Cardboard Resist

This is the first cardboard resist piece I made, it was made on a painted (light wash) piece of fabric and I used two colors for the design. Read on to find out more and for the How-to video see below.

For this next piece I left some of the backside tip fabric unpainted (no yellow), once dry and pressed I painted orange dots to the centers. I didn’t like that result, they felt too deliberate. The holes were in a tighter placement and I don’t think the overall results were as good, BUT maybe it’s just the colors; I think these colors would have been more striking on a white background.

Below is the only piece (so far) painted on white fabric, the picture doesn’t show how pretty it really is. I forgot to take a photo before I cut some pieces out, that’s the photo-shopped out white areas.

The next piece didn’t go as I had hoped. I started with a piece of rope wrapped fabric in green (more about that in a future post). I used three colors on the green background, which was an okay idea, but again the holes were too close. I’ve concluded that there needs to be more fabric and space between the holes.

  • black paint at edge
  • yellow paint on tip
  • flipped it and painted third color
  • back dry, not pressed
  • front dry, not presses.
  • front pressed, can’t really see the centers.

I did use the the above fabric but it doesn’t look anything like it did after painting. In my previous post I share the crackle/crinkle painted fabric and said I’d try to share an artwork using that technique and this newest paint technique. Here it is… Mixed media collage, raffia, coffee filter, and hand painted fabric. I may talk about the background wall fabric in a future post.

Untitled. Approximately 15.5″ x 11.5″

I learned more… One – I wanted the vase to be shiny so I painted Mod Podge on it, when it dried it was shiny BUT the crackles and crinkles were no longer visible. And two – Dry Mod Podge is really hard to wash out of fabric! I ended up flipping the fabric over and that worked fine, it’s actually darker than it appears in this photo.

After painting a few pieces I have more ideas for using this technique. If you paint fabric using any of these techniques I hope you’ll share your results.

Stay tuned for the next sweepstakes/giveaway announcement.

Layers and Layers

I have been working on this painted whole cloth for a while now and finding it, with it’s many layers, a challenge. I believe the best paintings have many layers but when I approach a piece of fabric (canvas), I know in the end I’m going to stitch it and that sometimes presents a problem. Many layers of paint make it much more difficult to quilt and especially hand stitch through. A part of me loves this challenge but another part of me wants to avoid it at all costs! As I’m learning more about art and stretching as an artist I’m discovering new ways to create and new materials to use. Layering with finer weave fabrics and even paper can build the layers without hindering the stitch work.

a work in progress
a work in progress

The next quandary… Does combining those materials remove me from the “Art Quilt” category and push me into the “Mixed Media” box? The line seems to be blurring for me but when I enter general art competitions, the submission application always wants me to categorize the work. No matter how much I paint or add materials other than fabric to a piece I want to be called an “Art Quilt” artist. Maybe this is still me shouting “Quilts are ART!” I think, thanks to the fabulous quilt and fiber artists producing and sharing their work, the general public is beginning to see quilts as art (whether utilitarian or for the wall). Let’s keep showing what we’ve got!