Finishing with Glamour Oct 28 2017

Sometimes T-shirts need a little bit of touch up to make the colours or the design stand out and look more striking so the last demonstration was on touching up some T-shirts that needed a bit of pop. That's when contour fabric paste is most useful. You can get them in many colours, including both metallic as well as glitter combinations.

The grey T-shirt on the right presented an interesting challenge as the lady who ordered it was quite specific about not wanting colours that were too strong. The problem was that delicate pastels look very faded against a dove grey background. So the solution was to use black contour paste to outline everything and make the colours stand out against it.

The T-shirt on the left had a strong red and green design but it needed a bit of glamour to make it more versatile for both casual as well as party wear, so it was slashed with silver glitter contour paste to look like falling rain. The silver contour paste was slightly smeared in long streaks to give softer contours to the glittery paste.

If you'd like to learn more about fabric painting or printing and other art and craft projects, don't forget we have classes for kids and adults every Saturday from 1pm to 4pm.

Deepavali Demo 18 October 2017

Wishing all our Hindu members and friends a bright and colourfully joyous Deepavali!

This morning's demonstration at the Botanical Gardens was on how to use local leaves to print a specific design. As it was Deepavali, a peacock design was chosen for the occasion. Porterweed leaves (Stachytarpheta indica Jamaicensis) and stems were used to make up the peacock's body and tail.

It was a busy morning at the Gardens, with many families taking advantage of the sunny weather to enjoy a family outing and there were many children watching the demonstration. Perhaps due to the large crowds around the Botanika Shop, the usual furry friends were nowhere to be seen so the demonstration went off peacefully and without  any funny incidents.

The largest leaf was used to print the peacock's body first before the stems were printed in a radiating fan shape on which smaller leaves could be arranged to make up the tail feathers. A mainly blue and green colour scheme was chosen for the design. When all the shapes had been printed, gold and silver glitter was added to highlight the peacock's body, eyes, crest and tail feathers. 

If you're interested to learn more about printing with leaves or would like your children to learn a simple but valuable craft which they can use to decorate their own T-shirts at home, don't forget that we have classes for printing and painting at our Outreach office from 1pm to 4.30pm every Saturday.

Texture Paint Demo 14 Oct 2017

Today's demonstration was a distinctly different one from past ones as the medium used for drawing and painting was not applied with a brush but directly from the bottle, using the built-in squeeze-tube nozzle. It's not for the faint of heart as there is almost no room for error. The texture paint will bond with the fabric almost immediately and any attempt to rub or brush it off will only smear the thick paste all over your white T-shirt. Have a look at the step by step photos here.

The Cosmos or Red Tower Ginger was the subject and the demonstration began with drawing in the outlines of the flower with black paste. It's much easier if yo stretch the T-shirt properly on a hard piece of cardboard before you begin drawing.

And you must have a clear idea of what you want to draw before you apply the paste because you can't make a correction easily. An easier way to do it is to sketch your subject on to the T-shirt with a pencil first.

You can also use coloured texture paste or glittery texture paste to draw but on a white T-shirt, black provides a more effective contrast. When the paste is dry, it will stand out against the fabric. It won't be flat like paint. You can even paint inside the outlines with ordinary fabric paint.

Once the outline is finished, you should wait for the texture paste to dry completely first before applying any other coloured paste within it. That normally takes at least two days in rainy weather but you can apply other colours on other parts of the T-shirt before that. If you have a steady hand, you can also write with the fabric paste.

For the purposes of the demonstration, the glittery gold was added as a highlight and to balance the design. Just one word of caution, try to draw or paint where you won't be distracted. Especially by monkeys. Since this morning's demonstration was done in the Botanic Gardens, I ended up with glittery gold dust all over my own clothes when a monkey jumped out of the tree behind me and landed on the ground right next to my chair!

You can add more glittery colours. I've added red glitter to complement the gold and black here, but it's best to limit yourself to just one or two. Too many glittery colours will make your T-shirt look like a Chinese opera costume! And on top of that, you'll have little space to paint in the ordinary fabric paint because the texture paste will flatten out and spread slightly as it dries.

We have lessons on Texture Paste T-shirt Painting, as well as other forms of fabric decoration on T-shirts and bags at the Friends of the Penang Botanic Gardens Society Outreach office so don't hesitate to drop by and have a look!

Delicate Flowers Demo 7 Oct 2017

The demonstration for the Garden Shop this morning was a more delicate combination of line work and single-stroke painting done on a ladies' black T-shirt. 

The weather was good but for some odd reason, there was hardly a single furry friend around. There were lots of people, however. It was really nice to see young parents taking their toddlers out for a morning walk at the Gardens. There were lots of senior citizens, too. Although the audience this morning was mostly local people, there were also some Middle Eastern and Indian tourists who stopped by to watch. 

The T-shirt chosen for the demonstration was not a 100% cotton one but a lighter, looser and thinner mixture of polyester and cotton. This combination works best with the special paints we use for coloured or black fabrics since it isn't easily absorbed into the material. The colours wouldn't be visible if that happened.

The photograph on the right shows the close-up of the T-shirt painted this morning. The combination of slightly more watery paint and thicker, bolder colour gives a more delicate look to the final painting, almost like lace from a distance. It will probably be touched up with a bit of glitter paste, to bring out more details and to highlight various parts of the design.

We have classes for children and for adults at Outreach, so don't hesitate to call or drop by to learn more about our various art and handicraft classes!

Glitter Paste Demo 30 Sept 2017

The weekend's weather was rather unpredictable. It started off bright and sunny, perfect for a special kind of T-shirt painting demonstration using glittery texture paste as a touch up and highlight media. There were lots of families, very fit senior citizens and schoolchildren and many came to watch and ask questions during the demonstration.

The first was touching up a painted panel of Costus ginger flower that had been painted o to a black T-shirt. The impressionistic painting technique used to produce the flowers was perfect for touching up with glittery texture lines in gold while glitter pink was used on the flowers. It was a very eye-catching effect. 

The second piece involved a T-shirt that had been printed with Porterweed leaves to produce a flowing diagonal design not unlike a wisteria in effect. A more subtle effect was achieved by avoiding strong lines and using smudged opalescent pink glitter to highlight just the insides of the pink leaves and some of the green leaves.

All our painted or printed T-shirts and bags can be washed without the paint or glitter coming off once they are completely dry, as we use good quality dyes and glitter texture paste.

Unfortunately, before a third demonstration could be done, the rain came and there was a frantic rush to get everything back into the shop before the T-shirts got wet. The usual troop of macaque monkeys was missing though, and a small family of langurs took the stage (or the top of the big dustbin) and happily posed for all the tourists taking their pictures.

Don't forget we have classes for T-shirt painting and printing, glass painting and other art and craft projects for children and adults at Outreach. You'll be surprised what your child can produce! So drop by our office to find out more!