The Pink Couch

I woke up determined to work on my new fabric painting today. I got a bit of a late start after Matt, the farrier, came to trim Fanny and Lulu’s hooves.  But that just got me more focused.

I knew I wanted to paint the couch I stitched on the old quilt back but wasn’t sure how the paint would react to the soft quilted fabric.  I also had to figure out the colors I wanted to use.

So I did some experimenting on small pieces of the same old quilt that I had.

Too much water in the paint and the texture of the quilted fabric flattened out and the paint bled.  Not enough water and the paint was hardly visible on the bumpy surface.

I knew I wanted the couch to be pink so I mixed three different pinks.  The lightest I’d use on the front of the couch cushion and the darkest on the back.  For the top of the cushion, I used something in between.

I still wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do when I stopped for lunch then I drove Jon to a doctor’s appointment.

The break was really just what I needed. The time I spent away from my studio gave me the perspective I needed to make the decisions on what to do next.

I started out by dry brushing each color to the three different sections  so it picked up on the parts of the fabric that were raised.  Then I used a small brush, and allowing the physical contours of the quilting to guide me, I filled in the spaces that were left.

Once I stopped worrying about messing it up and just started painting, it came together much more easily than I imagined.

For the wood surrounding the cushions, I’m using small pieces of silk painted on with matte medium. I wanted it to have a smoother texture than the fabric. I didn’t get to finish that part, but I like the way it’s looking.

More tomorrow…