I had leftover fabric from a pillow project, so I decided to try out Anna Maria Horner's silhouette idea. Worked like a charm! You stretch fabric over a canvas, paint it with gel medium to sort of seal it and make a smooth surface, transfer or draw on your shape, then use acrylic paint to fill in the outsides. You can see her tutorial here. (This design is based on some Chinese paper cutouts I saw in a book. The purple fabric is this stuff.)Clarification: I didn't cut out a stencil like the tutorial said, but transferred my design on with graphite paper and then painted around it. And I used Golden brand matte gel medium instead of mod podge.
This was a project for my friend's office. (Some of you know who I'm talking about.) She has a little sofa, a desk, a bookshelf, and some naked walls, so I put together a few decorations. Because nobody should have naked walls. Sewed some pillows, found this print on Imagekind, got a cheap frame from Ikea, and made the purple painting to take up some wall space. This Photoshop collage was my test to see if the things would look okay together.
Its really pretty! Surprised its not Orange though :)
ReplyDeleteHey..you know what, u should crop by my blog for a big dose of orange!
ReplyDeleteOh, it's beautiful! And purple actually goes amazingly well with orange... ;)
ReplyDeleteReally nice result !
ReplyDeleteAre you going to hang it on a wall ? I'm curious to see how It will "pop" against all the orange details. Sure it would be pretty cool.
Looks really nice!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to do this again, I recommend to try "freezer paper" which is much easier to use as you iron it to the fabric, so you don´t have any problems with any paint coming under the cut-outs.
Great Job! Looks fab!
ReplyDeleteyour canvas turned out great. i tried this back at christmas and when i applied the mod podge to the fabric on the canvas is bubbled up and looked awful! what gel medium did you use and did you have any difficulty with it? thanks! i'd like to try it again as i think it's a great idea.
ReplyDeleteI love the purple goodness (is this the place to confess I am not too fond of orange as a colour? - on me to wear as clothes)
ReplyDeleteI have awarded you a Brillante [sic] blog thingy. If you stop by my blog you can pick up the logo pic etc. There's rules and stuff....you know the drill.
That's very pretty! If you feel like doing more in other colors, I have some bedroom wallspace.....
ReplyDelete:-)
Love you,
Mum
Dang Woman! Thanks so much for sharing these tutorials. I love that not only do you share the swift idea but also the process. You don't leave me with the excuse that I don't know how they did it. We are waffling over what to put on the walls of the Inn in the bedrooms and this looks clean and chic and could fit into whatever color palette we have going on! There are some crafter/designer/artists types in the family who would like to make some and not just buy everything and I think this is a most excellent solution...at least for a few of the wall hangings. Cheers! (once again)
ReplyDeleteDid you freehand that? Or copy and cut out, cuz either way it sounds hard to get that kind of detail!
ReplyDeleteAs a chinese girl who used to do the traditional brush painting, I have to say you did a wonderful job! You made it look so modern. It will look great in my guest room. :)
ReplyDeleteFabulous! I'm working on a few of these myself this week so this was a treat to see!
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this - your flower version is really more useful than horses...if you don't have a pet horse, that is.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to try this at home.
Yes, I like your design better than the Martha one, too. And the purple on purple is really nice. Add it to the very long list of ideas now floating around in my head.
ReplyDeleteThis is great!! Love it!!
ReplyDeleteHow about Purple...Love it!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I can't wait to try this!
ReplyDeleteThat came out beautiful!! I am definitely going to try that too!
ReplyDeleteMy sister justbought that exact smae thing at the goodwill!
ReplyDeleteGirlville (and everyone), I just updated the post to answer your question and give more details about what I used to make this. I thinned the gel medium with a little water to make it less sticky to brush on, so maybe that helped. I didn't have the bubbling-up problem you had.
ReplyDeletegorgeous! loved the colors..n thanks for the link to the tutorial..:)
ReplyDeleteumm i doubt i will find either mod podge or Golden brand matte gel medium here in India..any other alternative?
ReplyDeleteThat is so neat! I need to make some art for my home soon and I have a lot of leftover fabric from covering seats and making curtains. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful purple color.
ReplyDeleteOh, how true it is that nobody should have naked walls. Walls are too precious a space to leave them bare, so many things to put on them that could make them spectacular.
ReplyDeleteOh yay! Purple! My favorite. I love it!
ReplyDeleteThat is fab! Great colors and great diy idea :)
ReplyDeleteI love it! I actually have had my fabric and stencil set aside to do this project for weeks and you have motivated me to actually finish! I may change the medium from mod podge based on the comments though, great tip.
ReplyDeleteCreatist, gel medium is a pretty common art supply, I believe. If you can buy acrylic paint in India, you can probably find gel medium in the same section of the store. Just ask the art store person. It's white, thick, stuff that dries clear.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this one! I so plan on trying it out. Thanks for another great link!
ReplyDeletethank you :) will try it!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know there's an award for you on my blog too :)
This came out really good. I like the Asian inspired graphic.
ReplyDeleteLove the concept and the graphic. Thanks for sharing.
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