Painting Fabric

I hope everyone enjoyed Earth Day yesterday.  We had unseasonably warm temperatures yesterday - into the 80's.  It would have been a great day to dye fabric outside.  I'm not quite ready to do my annual warm weather dyeing yet.

However, I did need a large piece of multicolored fabric for a piece I want to start work on.  So instead of dyeing, I got out my paints.  I painted outside on my back deck.  I was thinking it would be great to be a plein air painter because you can be outside while you are working.  It's hard to have a sewing machine outside.

It was fun to paint without having a plan.  I'll show you my progression of painting.

1) I had to use an acrylic yellow paint because I had run out of the Setacolor fabric paint.  I slapped it on with a foam brush.  You can see my shoes in the upper left corner of the picture.  It might give you a sense of how big the piece of fabric is.

2) All the remaining colors were Setacolor.  I mixed some red into the little bit of yellow I had left over.  Notice that there are wrinkles in the fabric and plastic (which the Setacolor will accentuate).  It didn't matter to me.

3) The next layer I added the plain red, which is a little darker and added splatters.

4)  Then, I mixed some blue and white into the red.  (I was doing all this in one big yogurt container.)

5) I splashed some water on it and then went back in with the yellow again.  This caused it to become more blended.

6) I let it dry and it was interesting what the Setacolor paint did.  Here is a close up.

7) It also did some interesting things on the back next to the plastic.

In the end, you probably won't see much of this painting.  But I won't spoil the surprise.