Part 2 Project 5 Printing and Painting on Fabric

I chose plain fabrics from my collection.  I worked on a variety of fabrics including cotton, linen and felt. I also used some wool batting.  I began by using Brusho watercolour paints to paint the fabric.  As I worked the colours started to merge together in a way I liked so I did several samples using Brusho painting on the different fabrics being interested to see how they would look when they were dry.  The cottons faded slightly as they dried but still giving a nice background to print on.  I printed onto the cotton with a block made from polystyrene using fabric paint.  I also stencilled through a piece of lace using a permanent ink pen and drew a pattern using the same pen.  I quite like the stencil.  I think it is better than my attempts in the previous exercises at stencilling.  I didn't like drawing on the fabric.  I didn't feel as free as I do when I am painting on fabric.

I liked printing with fabric paint using a polystyrene block.  I left the background fabric crumpled to see how the print would look.  I like the texture.

I painted pieces of bondaweb with metallic acrylic paint and Brusho watercolour paints.  When dry I then ironed the bondaweb onto pieces of cotton and linen.  All the pieces were successful and gave lovely textured backgrounds to work on.  When the bondaweb was applied to the linen it became almost plastic in texture but still soft enough to work into.  On the piece of cotton I took a rubbing from a block made from card.  I used fabric paint.  This wasn't as successful as I would have wished but does give an interesting background. The bondaweb painted with Brusho was applied to cotton and gave a very textured more delicate looking background.  I sponged on to this in places with fabric paint.  I think this was the most successful.

I really liked painting the fabrics with the Brusho and seeing how some fabrics remained very vibrant in colour and on others the colours became muted when dry. The silk noil in particular kept the colours very well. I liked printing on these backgrounds with fabric paint.  I used polystyrene blocks, blocks made from card and anything I could get my hands on such as forks and bottle tops.