Textile Medium

[E.M. T.]

I want to experiment with painting on fabric but I don't want to spend a fortune on supplies - stay at home mom on a budget here! Anyone have any experience with any inexpensive textile medium that can be used with art supplies I might already have around the house? What have you tried that worked well? I have a stockpile of accrylic paints, water color paints, oil pastels, some oil pants, water color pencils, colored pencils...I don't mind buying a bottle of textile medium...I just want to create a painting I can quilt basically. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Rita C.]

Have a look at show 903 with Velda Newman. She uses acrylic paint on fabric with great success. I tried it with my son for fun and it was great. I don't know about washing it afterwards though because I haven't tried but you could always do a test piece to see how it works. It's a fun technique though.

[Susan B.]

Google "textile medium" for a variety of brands, pictures, Youtubes. It can be used with Derwent Intense pencils which are a lot of fun, but expensive. Irene Bluhm paints her quilts.

http://painting.about.com/cs/fabricp...ldenGAC900.htm
I've never used this one, but it looks interesting.

Some of the mediums can be watered down a bit, I think, to reduce the effect of stiffening the fabric.

[Susan B.]

I have used textile medium with my watercolor pencil and regular colored pencils ( on fabric) and I have washed after use--no problems. As far as expense--I don't know how much I paid for the medium but I know I don't have to use much to do what I am doing so it lasts a long time.

[Susan B.]

Thank you all!!

I'm going to look into some of your suggestions, I truly appreciate it.

I did do some painting with acrylics directly on fabric after finding an amazing website of a quilt artist who does amazing fine art paintings on her quilts. She does the stitching first though, then the quilting - but I am going to play with her technique for my own purposes.

Thank you again!

[Susan B.]

Hold on to your pocketbook! Actually, I'm not sure that's right, but these sites are amazing.

Sherry Rogers Harrison:
http://www.sewfarsewgood.org

http://www.dreamingcolor.com

[Sandra H.]

I use Setacolor paints to paint on fabric. You can mix the paint with textile medium or floating medium to stop it running. Allow to dry and heat set with an iron or in the drier. I have used water color pencils too. I have not tried to do an actual pictorial piece but again they are set by allowing to dry and then using heat. Go to the web sites of the farious manufactures for information. Derwent have lots of information. Their Inktense stuff is great but not cheap. And it is ink not paint. I just did an experiment with pens for a demo I did for my local guild on labels. I used all the likely pens I had including ball point to write accross one line on fabric. I then cot it in 3 accross the lines. Pressed one washed it and an unpressed (or heat set) one and then compared them to the original.

[Marion D.]

I have used crayons successfully...just color, iron the wax onto newsprint, and treat like any other block. (the newsprint goes BETWEEN the iron and the fabric!) Your kids can get involved, too.

If you want to draw something for them to color on, just use a washable ink pencil (special buy, sorry). the turquoise ones wash out really easily.

[Marion D.]

I used wax crayons to make a rubbing of some paper doilies on fabric , which I then quilted to make place mats. Unfortunately when I washed them the colour all disappeared - I thought it would last. Still the quilting looks nice.

[Diane O.]

If you are near a Michaels, or JoAnns, or Hobby Lobby, they sell textile mediums in their "Fine Arts" departments, and you can use a coupon. I know they sell the Inktense pencils and have Golden and Liquitex brands of mediums. When I wanted to start using mediums in my crafting, I would buy one bottle of something I wanted to try, using a 40% or 50% off coupon. I usually would get one bottle a week or month, depending on what I wanted, and what coupons I had, and how much I wanted to spend on craft supplies that week.

[Betty J.]

Hi, I have used aloe..just pure, no perfumes or anything...like you get from the drugstore to mix in with acrylics. It is fairly satisfactory....prevents the acrylics from making the fabric too stiff. Then heat set them. After a while, you may decide to invest in some Setacolor inks. They are divine...permanent, after they dry and you heat set them, and they don't change the hand of the cloth.

[Betty J.]

Lookee here I made it to the new forums finally!

Thank you all for the new tips - I have been so busy with long arming quilts I haven't done much with my painted quilts but I did manage to work on one for a while...I will share photos when I get some time!

Thank you for all of the help!

[Betty J.]

I prefer the liquitex textile medium over the golden brand.
I use the liquitex with regular watercolor pencils on fabric and they work find together. I don't wash too often, but it doesn't seem to bleed or fade. Basically i use the textile medium instead of water to make the pencil drawings wet.
So i use the pencil on the fabric, dampen my brush with textile medium and rub it into my pencil marks.

If I want to use the 'wash' effect of using dry pencil on wet surface, then I mix textile medium with water in a half and half solution. I dampen my fabric with it and then dry pencil on top of it.

You can be really creative.
To thicken and slow the flow of the dissolving pencils, I have also tried using aloe vera gel. I have aloe growing in a pot and I just snipped of a peice and squeezed the gel out of it it. I think you could use anything water-based and thick. I have found aloe from a bottle is usually pretty runny and doesn't work for what I wanted. If you dye fabric you might have things like maybe carageenan, agar-agar around, and they will work too.

By the way, if you really get into this form of art quilting, The Derwent Inktense pencils are the bomb. You don't actually ahve to even use textile medium with them. Though if you are going to use it on a bed quilt that will get washed.. you will probably want to. I have a small quilt done with Inktense and I've washed it quite a lot.. maybe 20 times so far.. and not had any problems with fading or the pencil coloring washing out.
Have fun!

[Betty J.]

Hey, kayakbabe - any chance of pictures, please!

[Betty J.]

By the way, if you really get into this form of art quilting, The Derwent Inktense pencils are the bomb. You don't actually ahve to even use textile medium with them. Though if you are going to use it on a bed quilt that will get washed.. you will probably want to. I have a small quilt done with Inktense and I've washed it quite a lot.. maybe 20 times so far.. and not had any problems with fading or the pencil coloring washing out.
Have fun!

Thanks for this! I have kind of been thinking a lot about that myself. I want to make essentially paintings on fiber...so they are quilts technically because I will incorporate some quilting for texture...but I think of these pieces more as artwork. But here's what concerns me and makes me think I should probably fix these colors in some way so they are waterproof - I like to exhibit and show my work. How do they sort quilts at fiber art/contemporary art quilt shows? Do they stack them like in traditional shows? So if I have a quilt with paint that has the possibility of running - does that limit where I can enter the work? I am finding I work better with a goal, and shows really give me that push for completion. I went to Quilt National a few years ago though and the quilts were so broad and different there...if they stacked them they would probably ruin a good portion of them. So I wonder if they come out directly from the box to hanging? No idea...but some insight on that process might help me......