Colored Pencil on Fabric – New Lesson

I am always looking for different ways to do what I enjoy.  I have been wanting to play more with colored pencils on fabric (truthfully, isn’t what we do with our creativity play?).   Recently I read that using aloe gel instead of the textile medium helps keep the pencil marks on fabric permanent.

 

I have written about using colored pencil on fabric before in this blog.  You can use any type of colored pencil – expensive artist pencils or cheaper craft pencils - but if you wet or wash the item, the pencil marks will fade.  To keep the marks permanent, you need to use a textile medium. 

 

But a couple of weeks ago I was reading that aloe gel does the same thing.  I didn’t believe it because aloe washes out of clothes so how could keeping pencil marks permanent work with aloe. So I tried it. Just to be clear, I used a bottled clear ale get, not the gel straight from the plant.

 

 

I got out my pencils and colored a very simple heart with red.  I then poured a little aloe in a dish and brushed the aloe over the heart.  This is how it looked.

 

 

 

 

 

 I did use freezer paper to stabilize the fabric and kept it on when I used the aloe it wouldn’t seep through to my work service (which is just a cover of a plastic bin). I waited for it to dry before I heat set it with a hot dry iron.  To be honest, I actually forgot about it so it was drying for at least 24 hours before I used the iron.  Heat setting always helps the color set permanently on the fabric.

 

Then with hot water, I drenched the little heart and rubbed the coloring with my finger.  I could not see where there was any fading of the color. Now since I have done all of this in the past week, I can’t say for sure that it will not eventually fade with time or exposure to light.  Using the textile medium will guarantee fading should not happen over time.

 

 

The one thing I did notice was after brushing on the aloe, heat setting and rinsing the fabric, the piece felt softer and did not have the stiffness that you get with the textile medium.   

 

So if you are doing colored pencil on fabric and don’t have access to an art or craft store to buy the medium, this is a good alternative.  So here is a new lesson in using colored pencil on fabric.

 

©2021 Cheryl Fillion

Do What Makes You Come Alive

I have been in a bit of a slump with my etsy business recently.  So when reading some past blogs, I came upon this one and it did the trick.  I hope it helps you with any slumps you might have.

 

When I began doing research to open my etsy shop, I got a lot of advice about what to sell, what to do and how to do it.   But the best advice I ever got actually came in a quote.  Howard Thurman (a minister known to have influenced Martin Luther King Jr) said.  “Don’t worry about what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and do that.  Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”  That quote made me come alive.  If I was going to open an online shop, I probably should open one that excites me; that gives me pleasure; that makes me come alive.

 

If you are going to do something creative whether it is starting a business or a piece of art, do something that makes you come alive.   In business it is good to follow the trends.  Trends tend to show what people are interested in buying.  But you can also have too much of one trend.  If you have one shop that specializes in tote bags because bags are the ‘in’ thing, that shop will make money.  But if you have 2 or 3 shops selling bags, the sales are going to be less for each individual shop.

 

And what if some of those shop owners don’t really like selling tote bags, they are just following the trend of tote bags. That shop owner is not really going to be excited about his or her inventory. And customers tend to sense that.   The same is true in anything we do.  Are we doing it because it is the ‘in’ thing or are we doing it because we can’t stop thinking about whatever ‘it’ is? 

 

It is OK to do trendy things but don’t keep doing it if it isn’t giving you pleasure. What is the point in that?  A couple of years ago I tried improvisational quilting (in this case sewing random pieces of fabric together without really knowing what the end product will look like.  One style of improv is the traditional crazy quilt block.). Now I often make things up as I create so I thought this would be the best class for me.  Oh was I wrong.  I like to have an idea of what things will look like in the end.    And at least the way this improv quilting was being taught didn’t do that.

 

So even though a lot of quilters in my guild were interested in it and talked a lot about improv quilting, I didn’t stick with it.  I didn’t even finish the project I started in the class.  It didn’t make me come alive.  It actually gave me a headache (haha). 

 

If you are going to spend your time doing something for business or creatively, do something that has you smiling all the time. Do something you can’t stop thinking about or keeps you up at night with ideas swirling in your head (I say that only because I was up early this morning writing ideas down for this blog.)

 

If you are doing what makes you come alive, you are then a role model for others to do what makes them come alive.  And then they in turn might influence others.   And as Rev. Thurman said “what the world needs are people who have come alive.”   So start giving the world what it needs and do something that makes you come alive.  

 

 

©2019, 2021-Cheryl Fillion

My Colored Pencil Doll

Lately I have wanted to do more work with colored pencils on fabric.  A couple of weeks ago I posted my blog on the Japanese Doll Festival and that sparked me to make a doll.  So I combined the two urges and made a little pocket doll with colored pencils.

 

A pocket doll is simply a doll small enough to fit in a pocket.  I decided to make my little doll based on a cookie cutter I received as a child.  It had the design for the ‘cookie’ on the top of it and that is what my doll would look like.  (You might notice it is a pretty thick cookie cutter.  There was actually soap shaped like the cutter in it when I received it as a child.).  The cutter is about 2 ½ inches wide and 4 ½ inches tall.

 

 

Supplies needed

 

-- white or cream or off white cotton fabric.  You will want it at least 2 inches bigger than the dolls shape

 

--a piece of freezer paper the same size as the cut fabric.  Freezer paper can be found in some groceries in the wax paper/aluminum foil aisle. This helps stabilize your fabric so it doesn’t stretch or move when coloring it.  You can use a light weight iron on fabric stabilizer if you want.  You will remove the freezer paper when you are done.

 

--colored pencils – any brand will work. The more expensive brands might have a darker pigment.   

 

-- textile medium A textile medium is a liquid put on a painting that makes the painting permanent so if you wash it, the pigment will not come off or fade.  Often times it was put on oil or acrylic paintings so they would not fade if exposed to sunlight.  It is a little thicker than water and you brush it on the coloring and let it dry. This is more likely found in an art supply store or a craft store near the paint supplies or glues.

 

-- brushes to apply the textile medium and small container to hold a small amount of textile medium

 

-- backing fabric for the doll.  It needs to be bigger than the doll design at least by 1/4 inch for a seam allowance.

 

-- fiber fill to stuff the doll

 

-- needle and thread.  You can if you want to use your machine but something this small I usually do it by hand.

 

 

 

I started with white cotton fabric.  I cut it to 4 by 6 inches for fit the cookie cutter design.  I cut a piece of freezer paper the same size and ironed it shiny side down onto the back of the white fabric.  As I mentioned above this stablizes the fabric so it doesn’t move around when I am coloring the fabric.

 

 

 With this next part I wanted to try something different.  I wanted the design to be free handed.  I didn’t want the entire design to be trace from some other source.  I just traced the shape around the cookie cutter.  Since I didn’t want any tracing lines, I used a flesh tone pencil.  Much of the outer edges were going to be arms and legs.  Where the hair and dress would be, I was going to use a dark pencil so it would cover the flesh colored pencil marks.

 

 

 

Now the fun part – coloring.   When I color I first go one direction with my pencil over the space I am coloring and then I go over that color, with the same pencil, in the opposite direction.  So with the hair, I used brown going right and left and once that area was totally brown, I then went up and down.  I think it gives it a more even coloring.  You still see the pencil marks but not as prominently.

 

Once I am done coloring, I leave the freezer paper on the fabric and cover the entire piece with the textile medium.  I start off with only a teaspoon of medium and if I need more I will add it as needed.  Don’t worry that the medium is white coming out of the bottle, once it is spread on the fabric, it turns clear.  Let it dry and then peel the freezer paper off. I should mention that the dried textie medium does make the fabric feel still but the advantage of the medium is the colored pencil will remain permanent on the fabric.

 

 

 

To make the doll, I usually measure about ¼ inch from the edge of the figure and cut away the excess.  This ¼ inch area is your seam allowance. I am going to sew right along the edge of the colored line.

 

 

 

 But when I went to sew on the wrong side, I had a hard time see the color on the back.  So I taped it to my light box and trace in pencil the edge of the coloring.  If you don’t have a light box, tape the doll to a brightly lit window, it works the same way.

 

Once you have the doll cut out, you now have to cut out the backing fabric.  You could trace the cookie cutter again and color the back of the doll.  I like with my little dolls to sometime have other fabric to back the doll.  I have this set of woven fabrics that had just the purple I needed to match the dress.

 

 

I pinned the doll to the backing fabric (right sides together) and then cut around the doll. 

 

 

 

 

 

What was left was to sew along the trace line.  Make sure you leave a little opening to turn the doll right side out and clip the seams so all the curved seams are smooth (Don’t clip the sewing or the doll will come apart.  Take it from someone who knows.).  Stuff the little doll, sew up the opening and you have yourself a doll.

 

 

© 2021 – Cheryl Fillion

Color Your Day

I was reading about a feeling notebook last night and I came up with an idea.  The idea for the notebook was not to write your feelings in it but to color them.  You buy a small notebook and at the end of the day (or even during the day) you pick a color to represent the day you are having and color the page in that color.  It gets you out of your head of words and into your heart of feelings.  Your heart is where a lot of art originates.

 

I liked that idea but I decided to do something a little different.  I want to play more with my colored pencils on fabric so instead of a little pocket notebook, I am going to use a strip of fabric and my pencils. 

 

I am going to start with a 2 inch wide strip of fabric and make my daily colorings about 1 ½ wide.  I think it is going to be interesting to see what color I choose for each day.  And also interesting to see how the color changes from day to day.

 

As I was reading this, I thought it would be a great idea to do with kids.  Have them pick out a color that shows how they feel and let them use that color all over the page.  It might help them release that feeling in the act of coloring, especially if you have them color fast.

 

It might even do the same for adults.  If you are having a frustrating day, pick your color and cover that page quickly to get the frustration out.  Then again, if you color that page (or fabric) slowly it might also calm that feeling down and help you relax.

 

You don’t want a big piece of paper (or fabric).  You might find a small pocket notebook or cut a piece of copy paper into fourths.  And you don’t want to use your best crayons or colored pencils for this.  In fact for children, you might want to start with a box of 6 or 8 crayons and maybe use the big ones to make bigger strokes with the crayon and cover the paper faster.  The other idea is the fewer the choices of crayons the easier the decision it is for little ones  (and maybe big kids too).

 

What I like about this idea is that it also gets adults and children using feelings to create art.  It would be great if after doing this for a while, the red you choose to display your anger starts to look like a flower and not just a page of red pigment. I don’t know of many people who stay very angry after looking at flowers.

 

I personally am hoping it will encourage me to work with colored pencils on fabric more.  If it becomes part of my daily routine, it might be a go-to form of embellishment of my art quilts.  I will let you know how it goes for me.

 

©2021  Cheryl Fillion