I’m sure that title has been used before-hopefully not by me.
It is nearly Friday and I’m away for the weekend (again) and have barely stopped all week. I love the summer- I seem to have an energy surge, which is just as well as there is an equivalent surge in “things that need doing.” Apart from my shopping trip on Monday (very specific fabric purchases for the blue and white quilt, coffee with a friend in the gloriously named Bath Fine Cheese company coffee shop) I have spent most of my time outside, working either on the allotment or in the garden. I’ll update you on the greener things in life over the next week or so..but I think I ought to mention here that I have decided to separate out the green things from the other things again! (Yes, I know-it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I can’t run the greener side pages the way I wanted to on this blog, so I have imported the whole of my Blogger garden blog lock, stock and two dripping barrels into a WordPress blog , also called Everything in the Garden’s Rosie. It’s here. If you want to see pretty flowers from earlier today you can. If you don’t, stick with me here.
I have been using some of the energy burst to work on the Birch quilt-I mocked up a detail to see if I could get the effect I wanted with Markal paintsticks. I have been intending to try the technique on this quilt right from the beginning. I wanted to use a silver paint for the bark of the trees, so this is the mock up I made.
I’m using a batik fabric for the panel-I like the dappled woodland light effect of this pattern. Using free motion stitching, I outlined the trees quite simply, then used the paintstick to colour the the tree and the branches. The sample is quite small-about 3 inches across and the branch details are narrow. I found it hard to contain the paint inside the machine lines as the sticks are broad, but that apart, I like the silvery effect. I guess it is possible to use a brush, but the paint doesn’t seem to want to go onto a brush very easily. Has anyone use Markal (Shiva) paint with a brush?
Anyhow, I have taken the plunge and used the same technique on the quilt proper where I have added four trees on the batik panel. I took a lot more care with the real quilt so there is less paint “spillage”.
I have tried paintstiks with paintbrushes without much success. just the other day I was experimenting trying to get a fine line with a paint stick – my technique; trace my design onto tracing paper (I use canson – very smooth and transparent). I then spread the paint stick on the reverse. placed the tracing paper paint side down on my fabric and burnished it with a stylus. it worked well – i am planning to write a post on this soon-ish. – i think it would work on a larger scale too, or you could just do the edges. The other option is to make a freezer paper stencil and iron it onto the fabric and colour in the tree that way (ie the tree is the negative image. hope this makes sense. I really like the birch tree on the batik (i think i own some of that fabric too)
Paula, what a brilliant idea! I always seem to resort to using my fingers with Markal sticks – daft idea, not tried it but would the paint sit on something like a cotton bud?
You’re so busy! Sounds like you’re having fun.
I’ve seen stencil brushes used with the paintsticks but haven’t tried them yet.
Paula’s ideas sound great though…
Now, I am off to see your flowers…..
Paula’s idea sounds brilliant. I intend to make a little something next week to try it out.