Monday, April 27, 2009

Shawl Progress, Painting Day

It’s raining outside, so I’m in my studio painting the fabric for the back of my shawl. I decided to make it just a movement of the colors on the front. I like to make things simple and not get too extravagant sometimes so I ran the PFD (Prepared for Dying) fabric through the rinse cycle of the washing machine to get the fabric damp. Then I diluted the textile paint in spray bottles and started spraying. The colors were coming out a weaker than I wanted and I wanted a little more variation, so instead of adding more paint to the spray bottles, I got out my paint plates and lightly diluted some more of the paints and started sponging. I was able to control the movement of the colors into each other a little better and got the color depth that I wanted too. Now I have the fabric drying in my studio, partially hanging over a drying rack and partially over some organizing bins on my worktable, with the ceiling fan on high.

Looking through my stash of lace I found some crocheted scallops on old window valances. So I sponged them too. These will go on the short ends of the shawl.

Yesterday my husband and talked about creating a painting area for me in the backyard. We have this little section at the end of the patio, next to the side yard, that the former owners of the house had a hot tub sitting on. He is going to put a stainless steel table up for me to paint on there. That corner of the house gets the most wind on breezy days, so he is also going to put up a 4 foot fence to block the breeze, that way my paints won’t go everywhere like they have before and I’ll be able to have a little ledge to hang and store things while I’m painting. I’ll post pictures when it gets done. His “Honey Do List”, well when he gets a few things done, it seems that we add double the number of tasks for him to than what he just accomplished! What would I do without him! I definitely don’t want to find out.

No comments: