I am working on a new piece. Pears again. Second in the series. Yesterday I painted the pears using Jacquard fabric paints. I'm not displeased with the results at all. I heat set the piece last night and was ready to go ahead and apply it to the background when I thought 'why not try the GAC 900, which is the Golden version of a fabric painting medium'. The idea is that you mix the medium in a one to one ratio with Golden acrylic colour, gels or mediums. I found it to be very runny. Also I hate to waste paint. So I gave this a try: instead of mixing each colour with the medium, I painted the medium, straight from the bottle, onto my fabric. I got it quite wet. I then painted the acrylic paint, straight from the jar, onto the fabric. I used Golden fluid acrylics. At first I didn't like how it went on because there were lots of hard lines (hard lines, but remember that the fabric was wet). I was worried I wouldn't be able to mix the colours satisfactorily or get rid of the hard lines. But in the end, I don't think it turned out too badly at all!
The fabric paints are on the left and the piece using the acrylic paints plus the fabric medium is on the right. There is a tendency for the colour to run a bit, since the whole thing is wet all at once, but that didn't seem to be too much of a problem as I went on. I was pleased I was able to get so much definition in the leaf on the right, for instance. I also mixed transparent and opaque paints (yellow ochre and quinacridone nickel azo gold, for example); I think that worked out all right. It is also worth noting that I am not planning on wearing this so the final hand of the fabric wasn't an issue. In fact, I imagine I could have simply used the acrylic paints on the fabric without the fabric medium, since I'm not wearing it, but I wanted to experiment a bit with the medium. I still have to press it....and the fabric medium 'releases formaldehyde upon pressing'. OK, I don't like the sound of that. And it's winter and stormy beyond words so I won't go outside to press it, but I think I'll press it in my laundry room with the door open. And then not breathe for 5 minutes....shouldn't be a problem!
Anyway, I'll let you know which one I decide to use on the finished piece.
As an aside, whilst painting the pears, I placed them on top of a sheet of paper from my sketchbook. A nice bonus, I got this rather abstract piece from where the paint went through the fabric onto the paper. I like it too!
It's fun playing around with all these things.
What's next.?....I'll be back...
I like the new format, and the new pears! What a treat to be able to see your work, even though I'm so far away.
ReplyDeleteThanks Joan. Keeping busy here....hope you are too!!
ReplyDeleteA further note. I ended up using the piece that I had painted with fabric paints. The piece using the GAC 900 was quite a bit stiffer. It is possible that if I had mixed it with all the various colours I needed in the one to one ratio, on a palette, it wouldn't have been so stiff but when I think of how many different puddles of different colours I would have had to prepare it didn't seem to have been worth the effort or the paint. On the other hand, the beauty of the GAC 900 fabric medium is that one is then able to use the full range of colours that Golden offers. For what I have wanted so far, however, the Jacquard fabric paints have been sufficient.
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