Flour Paste Resist - Day Three

Today we will see the final results of the flour resist painting technique . . . it is an exciting time as you remove the resist and see what changes have been made to the fabric.

First, soak your resist painted fabric in a bowl of warm water for about fifteen minutes. Next place a piece of the fabric on a plastic-covered surface and use an old credit card or plastic scraper to gently scrape the gooey gunk off the fabric.  Work slowly and enjoy revealing the new design on your fabric.

NOTE: Do not put the flour goo and water down your drains ... place it in the compost or garbage and throw the water onto the garden.

Once you have scraped off all of the flour paste resist, rinse the fabric lightly in warm water (remember the paint has not yet been heat set) and leave it to dry. Heat set the paint according to the instructions on the paint (for this paint I pressed the fabric between layers of parchment paper for the required time). The fabric can now be laundered to remove any residual flour and then it will be ready for you to use in your chosen project.
 
I love the veins of the black paint on the hand dyed fabric and the commercial batik.

The metallic yellow made gorgeous veins on the dark cobalt commercial fabric but I can see from the sample done on the purple dotted fabric that I would have liked more crackling on that piece ... that means I should have crumpled it a bit more or applied more paint to the surface. This technique is a bit more predictable than some, but there is always room for surprises along the way.

I hope you will try this out and add it to your fabric tool box!

Flour Paste Resist - Day Two

After the flour paste resist has dried overnight it is time to have fun scrunching the fabric!  You have control over how much crackle to have one the fabric, depending on how much you scrunch the fabric at this time. 

Lay the fabric on a plastic covered surface again and paint it with thinned textile paint.  I used Pebeo Setacolor paints in black and bright yellow for these fabrics.  I wanted a strong contrast to the colour of the fabric so I chose black to use on the turquoise hand dyed and the commercial batik and the yellow to use on the cobalt blue and purple dotted fabric.

Here are a couple of photos showing my fabric after it was painted. The edges of the fabric curled up when the flour paste resist was drying, but that didn't bother me ... I simply painted right into those curly edges.

 
Apply the paint with a broad brush ... and peek underneath to see how much is seeping through the cracks.  Be careful not to add too much paint (or have it too runny) or it might seep under the resist and you would lose the sharp crackle lines.

This photo shows the back side of the fabric with the paint seeping through.

Time to wait for this to dry before the next step!