Sun Printing Paint Results

Yesterday I showed you how I sun painted fabric with both Jacquard Textile Paint and Speedball Fabric Screen Printing Ink. Today we'll have the results.

 First is the piece using the textile paint.

Sun printed using textile paint

Closeup

Now the fabric using screen printing ink.

Sun printed with screen printing ink

Closeup

What I discovered from this experiment is that regular textile paint just doesn't do a very good sun printing job.  In addition to the colors not being as bright as the screen printing inks, the fern images were not as crisp. On the orange, the fern image can barely be seen.

There was a little problem with the ferns on both pieces due to how rigid the ferns were. That may be due to the plant I used or the time of the year, but they still looked much better on the screen printing ink piece.

The screen printing ink fabric was bright, images were pretty good, but as with the textile paint, the hand of the fabric really changed. Both of them were stiff and kind of rubbery feeling. 

I was surprised because I had no idea how the screen printing ink would work. In a pinch it would be okay, and much better than the textile paint. It would make good journal covers or even wall hangings although it might be hard to stitch through. 

However, in my opinion, if I want sun printed fabric to use in a garment or anything I'd need to hand sew, I'd use Pebeo SetaColor Transparent Paint or Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow. 

This is a piece of sun printed fabric I did last summer using SetaColor.

That's all from me for now.  LuAnn will be up next week showing you about the product she likes to use and how she uses her sun printing fabrics.

Have you tried regular textile paint or screen printing ink for sun printing? I'd love to hear your results.