artist date: july 2012

For my artist date this month, I decided to paint my ottoman.  I had previously covered it with some fabric but over the past year the fabric had gotten sun-bleached, dingy and dirty.

I bought this piece from a charity shop (thrift store) in England.  I love it. It’s a chair. A footstool. A coffee table. A laptop desk.  The only downside was this very ugly outdated 90s style floral upholstery. Although, it’s bland in color, I have always found it too aesthetically unappealing to just leave it.

This week I finally decided to try painting/staining the fabric.  I had no idea if painting would work, but I figured–if nothing, it couldn’t make it worse?

•  I used the pink/magenta wash base color to lightly stain the and dampen all the fabric –acrylic inks mixed with water.  (However, Rit dye would have probably been more practical, cheaper, and just as effective as my art inks)
• . Once the fabric was damp, I was able to use the dropper lids for the blue, teal, and darker magenta.  The dropper was ideal to add color detailing on the folds and seams. The fact that the fabric was damp helped the color spread more uniformly, and the color then changed more gradually from darker pigment to lighter.

Anyway, I think it worked fine.  The lame pattern is still visible, but the funky bright colors match my living room better and I really like it now.  So that was fun.

 

I mixed art inks with water to make a base color wash.

Painting in progress–

Colorful and finished.