Painting fabric in a bag

Over the next couple of weeks, I want to turn our focus to fabric painting. Now that it's getting warmer, this is a wonderful activity to do, maybe on your picnic table or on a sunny porch table.

Painting your fabric in a plastic bag is a great technique to choose when you want a surprise: you never know what you're going to end up with when you let everything swirl around together in a bag. So rip off a length of plain muslin and gather up your acrylic paints, small cups, water, and oh yeah...a gallon sized plastic bag.  Note: I do not use fabric paints or textile medium.  Since these fabrics are going to be used in fiber art projects and not washed, I am not concerned about the stiffness of the fabric or fading. 

You can see what I used this fabric for here.

1. Wet your fabric thoroughly, and ring it out so that it is wet but not puddling. Place it into the plastic bag.


2. Working from lightest to darkest color, mix your paints with water if they need it until they are very thin. Pour a thin stream of paint into the bag as you knead the fabric around.  Colors used: Hansa yellow light, Cobalt teal, Turquoise phthalo

3. Repeat with the other colors. Don't overwork the fabric or you'll end up with nothing but solid colored blend. It is usually best to work with analogous colors, avoiding complementaries or triadic colors which will blend to become muddy.


4. Remove the fabric, but keep it wadded up. Let it dry undisturbed.


5. Iron the fabric flat.


6. Choose some stencils or stamps and add any more layers of paint embellishment that you wish to liven up your design.


7. Iron the fabric again, this time ironing slowly and thoroughly to heat set the paints. Once they are properly heat set, you will even be able to wash the fabric without ruining the patterns you've created.


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Copyright 2009 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.