Textile Medium is needed to transform acrylic paint into permanent, flexible and washable paint. Always follow the directions on the product you choose.
Joann Fabrics and Crafts offered their own Craft Essentials Acrylic Paint which met our of color needs. They also offer a textile medium but after a bit of experimenting we chose to work with Delta Creative Ceramcoat Clear Textile Medium. Shop at Joann.com
For this project, along with the paint and medium described in the previous step, we also needed two sheets of stencil material, temporary basting spray to hold the stencil in place, paint pens (listed fabric use on the label), a drop cloth or large sheet of plastic to protect the work surface, a vanishing pen to mark lines, painters tape to mask off the lines and a small roller with the smallest nap you can find. A rotary ruler proved very handy for making the lines.
The Painting Process:
- Lay out the drop cloth or sheet of plastic on a surface large enough to protect your work surface. If you are using a sheet of plastic under a sheet, make sure the plastic is as large as the sheet as the paint bleeds through the plastic and will transfer to the back of the sheet if you attempt to just slide the sheet around on the plastic.
- Decide on your design and mark the design. For the design shown we marked lines 5" apart starting at one corner of the sheet using the 45 degree line on the ruler as a guide. (Fair warning- working on the bias grain of the fabric requires patience as the bias grain does stretch and warp as you pain. You must use care to keep the grain lines straight.)
- The next step is to tape the lines. We found it easiest to tape inside every other line so that we could fully paint every other line. After the paint dried we re-taped so we could go back and paint the un-painted sections.
- Mix the paint and textile medium as directed on the package.
- Slowly and as evenly as possible roll out the paint to fill each section. Retouch as needed but keep the paint as even as possible to have a consistent color. The more paint you use, the greater the likelihood that the fabric will be stiff.
- After the first painted lines are dry, re-tape and paint the remaining lines.
