Recently, I saw a fellow Nebraska artist, Elissa, doing poured paint on canvas and it looked fabulous and fun. I thought I would try this with my sun printing, using my Setacolor paints. I got a huge roll of canvas at an estate sale last summer, so I had plenty of material to experiment with.
I really loved my first piece. I like the white areas, and the drips, and areas of spreading paint. I ended up playing with this technique, instead of my original intention of mainly working with sheer fabrics.
First, I pinned my canvas to a foam board. I then wet the canvas material by spraying it with water. I rubbed my hand over it to make sure it was all wet and didn't have dry spots. I poured the yellow on first in a few places, and tilted my board so the paint would run. If it didn't run the way I wanted to, I would spray some additional water. I also would rub the paint with my fingers to remove some of the white areas. I did this with all the colors. I then pinned my stencils to the fabric and set it in the sun. It took a long time for this to dry. Since it is puddles of paint instead of painted on with a brush, it has a lot more liquid than usual. Also, the canvas material is very thick, so is slower drying. This first piece is 36" x 48".
My next attempt, pictured below, only had just warm colors. I thought it didn't have enough white space or enough lights and darks. Both the red and the blue pieces are roughly 30" x 36"
I made sure to leave more white areas with the next one, but still think it needs more contrast.
Of course while I was at it, I did some other sun printing as well. Here are some floral handkerchiefs. I plan to free-motion stitch a center of interest on these.
I then printed some sew-in interfacing over a layer of cotton/poly blend. The photos show the interfacing pieces folded back in the middle. The interfacing has much more detail since it was the top layer.
Then I did a sandwich of cotton/poly blend on the bottom, sheer polyester in the middle, and polyester lace on top. The lace prints onto the fabrics below.
This is fusible interfacing, which I did over a piece of canvas. The canvas did not get much paint, so it will need another layer. The interfacing looks great. Since this is fusible, I am not sure what I am going to do with it, but it's always fun to experiment.
I had made a layered fabric piece with sunprinted leaves earlier this spring here, and thought I would make another one with more colors. I sunprinted a layer of polyester sheer over a piece of canvas. Here is the sheer.
Of course I want to do more sun printing, but maybe I should work with these pieces instead. My growing fabric stash is getting too big (and I want to do some ice dyeing too).
