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