I feel like this series is really helping me get inspired again with art. For so long, I’ve focused on one medium, and although I love making collages, I think it’s important to experiment with others. I’m planning to keep this series going for a while, although I may not post as frequently in the future. Right now, experimenting with different materials has been really important in inspiring my other work.
And to continue on with my Arts & Fails series – where I try not to be so precious about the work I make and instead embrace the process of making things – this time I wanted to work with fabric paints. What inspired this particular project, was that I have a few free tote bags, backpacks, and other items with large corporate logos printed on them. I don’t really want to wear things that advertise major companies all of the time, so I figured I’d try to turn one of these items, a drawstring backpack, into wearable art.
Here’s a video of the project and process:
I started off painting over the logo entirely. Then I mapped out the boundaries of the design since the bag is made of a polyester material, and the paint makes it look more matte when it dries. Then I started painting a linear, landscape design. I decided to keep things simple and only use one color, but in the future I really want to work with more of the colors that I now have in my art supplies collection.
If you’d like to make your own fabric painting, here are the paints I used:
