Stenciled Flowers

My Assistant for this adventure, Lily, supervising from the height of my ironing board.

The Setup - wanting to paint floral stencils on my hand dyed fabric. I went thru my hand dyes and picked out a couple of pieces, mostly blue sky, I wanted something more adventurous, so I picked this multicolor grid fabric. It was made with rug hook grid under muslin, and gone over with dye paste on a foam roller brush. I thought I could pick up the colors in the flowers, and it looked kind of like a lattice in the garden. I laid out my assortment of stencils, mostly made with exposed X-ray plastic, choosing the florals and some large leafy filler pieces.

I used cheap acrylic paints, and did NOT do a typical dry brush stencil technique, I had to cover the background, so I applied the paint fairly thick. Highlighting with yellow, and putting a darker green on the underside of the leaves. Bright colors for the flowers, matched the colors in the background fabric. Working left to right, (I learned the wrong way, working on top of wet paint) and one stencil at a time, snugging them up close and overlapping a bit too.

Have a tin of water handy for the cleanup, don't leave the paint to dry on the stencils. I soak them all as I work, and clean them when done. Use a container that doesn't leak, another hard learned lesson!

Progress on the first round of painting. I will add more foliage in the front to fill in and add weight, more color flowers, fuchsia on the left, and highlight the blue bells, they disappear. I'll also add more pink and purple daisies. Finishing with dragonflies, stitching with rayon threads will bring it all to life. I'll add my favorite glass bead ladybugs, and some shimmery spiderwebs too. My only question is how to stitch the grid background? Any ideas? I've been working on this in stolen moments, painting one stencil at a time as I find 5 minutes to get in my studio. I need the sit down time to regroup, after helping my hubby with Dr. appointments, meals, making the office into a bedroom, etc... The progress is heartening, and having something to post on Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, is a good incentive. Click on the badge to the right to see other wonderful textile artists.