Sunday, February 3, 2013

Play Day with Paints

My friend Peggy and I had another play day at my house last week, I needed a break from taking care of my husband after surgery. I did not realize how stressed out I was, until we were back from the hospital. So just to have some fun, and not be too serious for a while, we played with acrylic paints and stencils and foam stamps. I also invited my neighbor Betsy over to play, she is very crafty and had the day off of work. We started by painting in a light multi color background, and then using the foam stamps to print large images onto the wet fabric, in a darker contrasting color(s).


Betsy made hers with a light green background and large blue dragonfly images, she added orange leaves to fill it in. We were too busy playing for me to take photographs :( Peggy did a lot of just painting a set of sky/sunset fabrics and other pieces. Next I made a ghost print from the left over paint on my plastic wrap, and started adding small areas of sequin waste stenciling in different medium colors, I also printed in rug grid, I filled the whole background and it was colorful, but a little too busy. So I used a large rose stencil and mauve paints, I added purple to the outside edge of the petals. Next I made one with pink and red edges, and orange and rust edges, the acrylic paints were opaque enough to go over the printed dots from the sequin waste. Next I added green leaves around the trio of roses, with my hand carved linoleum block. The leaves came out very well, the veins I had carved in came out very crisp in the printing.



I really liked the roses just the way they are, so I machine free motion quilted them in rayon threads, to match the roses. The background got quilted in a small stipple around the dots with an off white cotton thread that blends into the background, and adds texture without adding color. It is a small 11" x 16" wall hanging, but it is just sweet, I call it "Fiesta Roses." Another piece of fabric I painted was a stencil of maple leaf veins with blue/purple paints put on with a small foam rubber roller. I added a lot of texture with a rubber gripper pad and silver metallic paints.

It was a lot of fun to spend a few hours just playing around with friends, I highly recommend finding the time to do it.

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