Colouring Lutradur With Paint Glorious Paint!

Paints,

 Glorious Paints….

Wow this is a big subject! Lutradur takes paints beautifully... It can be soft and delicate or more solid and opaque. 

Same colour of paint from Seta. Different ways of applying make a difference to how it looks. 

 Using paints is fun way to get instant colour on to Lutradur. It goes quick and is a jumping off point form many projects.  Different brand paints provide different looks. Types of paints,  manufacturers, properties and uses of the paints make a difference. Play potential is endless so lets see what happens. 

The best way to learn with paints is to start with what you have….and research. 

Coming from a sewing background not a painting background. My exposure to paint was limited acrylic craft paint, finger paint and water colour paint. Mainly from my kids, and girl club activity painting. I have rudimentary drawing skills from my grade school days – in fact I never even could get past basic folk art painting.

But I can handle putting colour to fabric. Again I pulled out what I have…. And doing a bit of research  going to basic principles then you can figure out what will work.

A Bit About Paints... 

Most people will know most of this information but this is a brief explanation of paint as I understand it and some places to learn more if  you want...

Solvent vs water based paints. 

Solvent or Oil paints have to be cleaned up with a solvent cleaner. Water-based products (in theory) are cleaned up with water. 

Solvent paints cannot have water based products added to them. So if you use an oil based product you can’t put a water based product in it or have a water base product to stay on top of the oil . Oil can be used on top because it is heavier bodied and has the oil binders in it.  

This is my simple explanation and please correct me if I am wrong.  Oil does not mix with water….

Opaque vs. transparent.

The amount of solutes, what it is and how it incorporates into the liquid used to suspend them in the paint determines the opacity of paint.  Chemistry was also about 30 + years ago. (Again correct me if I am not quite right on this.

An opaque paint is hard to see through. Transparent is … easier to see through. This is a great visual to refer to. 
Link to two minute you tube clip from Interweave re: opaque vs transparent paint

Different paints looks different… For instance water based acrylics depending on the viscosity, pigments added and other chemical secrets from manufacturer's all look different. 
The same goes for water colours. 

For some better explanations about paint and their properties etc. Dick Blick’s have some great video’s too…

http://www.dickblick.com/categories/fabricdecoration/

And some other links for more information...

http://www.gsdye.com/Canada/FAQ.html

http://www.quiltingdaily.com/blogs/quilting-daily/archive/2011/12/20/fabric-painting-tip-don-t-go-near-the-water.aspx

http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/ss/color_theory_9.htm


And one of my favorite "you tube" channels to watch is the Colouricious you tube channel
and their web site colouricious.com 

In fact Ineke Berlyn  has done a DVD for Colouricious on Lutradur and you can check it out on either the you tube channel or at their web site. The clip on you tube shows a misting technique to paint a landscape picture.... 

I am going to split my samples into two posts because this one is a bit long already. 
but here are few ways I have used paint. 

Using up paint that was stuck to my covered surface after I hung my lutradur up to dry. Waste not want not.... 

Peblo Seta Colour on dry lutradur

Dry Lutradur on left and wet on right. 

I wish I had done the colours in a row to line up. But you can see the differences. These were all Seta Colour primary paints. Left piece was misted with a sprayer. Middle was made wet by a paint brush with water before applying paint. and the third was painted with straight paint. 

Mixed colours on dry lutradur - yellow and green Seta Colour

Acrylic craft paint from the dollar store. On the top the Lutradur was wet and the bottom is dry. Much deeper saturation of colour. 

Acrylic craft paint from the dollar store. 

Venetian Gold Metallic acrylic paint Deco Art. 

Wicking of paint applied to wet Lutradur. Creates great look of decaying leaves..... 

Lesley Riley gives her tip on paint.

Hint from Lesley...

 When I apply the colour to the Lutradur with various paints with the fabric dry I don’t get an even colour. Is there a trick of what brush to use or other hint that you can give me and the blog readers?

I always wet my Lutradur before I paint it. I love blended colors. Since it is literally a spun web, a lot of the wet color seeps through. I’ll go back in with a wet brush on damp Lutradur to add deeper, darker colors before it dries completely. I always use a foam brush too - no reason behind that, it’s just what I prefer.

By Lesley Riley To show transparency.

Notice the colour of the paint in the right picture the background is a pale pink that has a lovely soft wash of colour. I bet she created it by using wet lutradur with paint on top. 
I won't be back until Monday night with a post. We are off to clean at the cottage so we can go with the family next weekend. I want to take some pictures of the trees with no leaves on to make some prints for my lutradur transfers... that we will be covering in the near future. 

Whats Up Next? More colouring with water colours and more. 

Jo 
thesewinggeek.blogspot.ca