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!
No comments:
Post a Comment