Module 1 Chapter 5: Fabric Selection and Decoration

9th May 2009

Work in progress

The best bit about this chapter was the shopping! I spent a happy time choosing fabrics. Luckily I went at a quiet time and the assistant didn’t mind cutting 10 or 20cm of about 20 different fabrics, in fact she and another shop assistant entered into the spirit of the thing and suggested fabrics in my colour scheme that I hadn’t noticed or wouldn’t have chosen. A most enjoyable morning.

As well as printing with the stamps I’d made, I tried also printing with the bits I had cut away. On fabric, however, despite taping them to the table, I found it hard to hold the small stamps and messed up some of the prints with paint from my fingers. I will try to get stiff cardboard or board to glue them onto so I can hold them more easily. I have just discovered irridescent medium for acrylics and added that to the paint for some of the prints. One one print I tried printing with just the irridescent medium itself.

One interesting thing was the brush marks that showed clearly when I printed on a fluffy pale pink cotton, almost like flannelette. I always brush the paint onto the stamp and it was interesting to get the texture resulting from this.