I love printing processes and often explore new options when it comes to materials and techniques. And being an interior designer, I also have a passionate relationship with textiles. So I wanted to explore the capabilities of printing onto fabric, using not only paint but also podge medium.
I started playing around with printing onto fabric using textured wallpaper. The results were lovely, especially when I started to layer prints over each other using different colours.
Using a medium to resist pigment when dyeing is an age-old technique and I love the visual texture it gives to the end product.
I dyed a piece of linen by diluting Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan in English Yellow – I soaked the fabric in it over night and allowed it to dry for another day.
Shop your chalk paint online here!
I then painted a length of wallpaper with podge medium and proceeded to print the linen piece by piece, with some of the prints overlapping each other.
Once the podge dried, I painted the cloth with a deep blue and hung it up to dry for a few days. After a wash in the machine the cloth has an amazing intricate darker pattern on a denim-coloured slubby base-cloth, with small and unexpected pops of yellow coming through in places. Gorgeous!
The traditional ball-and-claw chair got a new lease on life with 2 coats of Graphite, 1 coat of clear wax with a light sanding after, and 2 coats of dark wax. I buffed the dark wax to give it a beautiful gloss which gives the chair a nice modern twist.
The seat was with covered with the new printed fabric and now takes pride of place in my home.
For some more experimental printing, have a look at our veggie printing post and try to experiment with some printing techniques – it’s great fun!
