Nellie"s Needles

Monday, March 31, 2008

Crayon Rubbing & Fabric Painting

A new project was begun the other day. My first step was to over-paint this crayon rubbing made a number of years ago.
I had created this rubbing on a metal grid of a patio table with the intention of making rippling water in a future quilt. I used the flat side of the crayons and made big sweeping horizontal strokes.
Here I'm set up with my plastic drop cloth, fabric paints, sponge brush, and pie tin pallet. I put dabs of paint, one color at a time, onto the pallet then poured a bit of water into it. I used whole arm sweeping horizontal strokes to apply the paint. The brush wasn't cleaned between colors.
The large piece was painted on the front side of the fabric over the crayon markings. The smaller one was painted on the back side of the
fabric on which there was more of a resist to the wax . The smaller piece won't be in my new project, but added to my stash.

To read of other crayon rubbings I've made for quilt projects go here.

3 comments:

Kay said...

There's definitely a watery look to that fabric. When you make a crayon rubbing, do you take the wax off with an iron, leaving just the color? If you did, is there a bit left as a resist for the paint? I thought that's what you meant about the back side of the fabric, but I wasn't sure.

Nellie's Needles said...

Kay, It's my experience that crayons do not leave a lot of wax on the fabric ... not at all like the batiking process. I iron over the crayoned fabric to melt that little bit of wax into the fabric as well as to set in the pigments.

jude said...

i have worked with crayons with great success, not to much wax left over. i love this overall approach, you are inspiring me.