How to paint on fabric

If you have ever been interested in painting on fabric, you should consider Inktense pencils and blocks! I love using Inktense on paper and on fabric.  The pencil set is a great alternative to bringing a watercolor set on vacation or nature walks.  I also enjoy using these pencils to paint on fabric. This blog post will give you all you need to get started! The supply links below are affiliate links from Amazon.

Supplies Needed:

The minimum supplies that you need are Inktense pencils, paint brush, and cotton fabric. In the demonstration video and photos, I am painting on white Essex linen, a cotton/linen blend that is slightly heavier than quilters cotton fabric.

It is nice to have, but not necessary,  water brushes, aloe vera gel, and GAC 900. Note: the GAC 900 can be heat set so that projects can be washed. (Although, I haven’t tried this since I don’t wash my art quilts.) More Amazon affiliate links for the supplies at the end of the article.

The Demonstration:

In my demonstration, I look at two different styles of fabric painting. The first style is a more traditional still life image.  The second style consists of contemporary, modern images to be incorporated in an improvisational quilt.  (Future blog post alert!) Remember that the “pencil” will act like water colors when wetted. Once dry, the colors will not bleed the same way water color does when overworked.

Still Life Painting

I began with a reference image for my still life and experimented with three different techniques.

In the first image, I used a 50/50 mix of GAC 900 and water. I sketched out the image with the Inktense pencils and then applied the 50/50 mix with a paintbrush. In the image,  you can see that I had some color bleeding during the process. Once I applied the fabric medium, I added in more layers of Inktense and 50/50 mix. 

Still Life Reference Image

In the first image, I used a 50/50 mix of GAC 900 and water. I sketched out the image with the Inktense pencils and then applied the 50/50 mix with a paintbrush. In the image,  you can see that I had some color bleeding during the process. Once I applied the fabric medium, I added in more layers of Inktense and 50/50 mix. 

Still Life Version 1

In the second sample,  I sketched the image outline in pencil. Then, I formed my “quilt sandwich” and stitched the outline of the major elements of the still life.  Once done, I then sketched in some color and applied the GAC 900 with a paintbrush.  I then gradually built up the Inktense colors using the pencils and fabric medium to activate the pencils. The combination of the stitched outline and quilt batting (plus no water in the GAC 900) really limited the amount of bleeding and resulted in extremely strong colors.

Still life in progress

In the third sample, I worked with unmixed GAC 900 on the linen background. I begin with a sketch of the still life by roughing in some colors with the Inktense pencils and then applying the fabric medium. 

Let me know -

Which still life version is your favorite? Version 1 - with the water color effect, Version 2 - with the stitched edges, or Version 3?

Tell me in the comments below.

Complete stitched still life

Improvisational Painting on Fabric

I worked several samples in an abstract style.

In the first sample, I sketched rolling swirls in emulation of quilted swirls. I then applied the 50/50 mix of GAC 900 and water to activate the Inktense. You can see the resulting water color effect in the image below.

In the second sample, I sketched in the same type of rolling swirls, but activated the pencils using only GAC 900.  I added sketched in more swirls and then activated these swirls with more GAC 900. You can see that the Inktense does not behave like watercolors where the purple forms a thin edge along the green swirl.

Finally, I finished my samples by painting on 5 by 5 inch, white cotton squares.  In these image you can see the abstract dandelion puff seeds that I sketched out for a future project. I sketched these one at a time, applied the GAC 900, and then waited before starting the next seed. 

Sample 1: Water Color Swirls

Sample 2: Solid Swirls

Sample 3: Dandelion seeds

YouTube Demonstration

If you’d like to see these in action, you can check out my YouTube video. 

Hopefully, this will get you started using Inktense pencils to paint on fabric and incorporate fabric painting in your quilts.