New Technique

In preparation for a demo-program I'm giving to the Tara Guild of Clayton County, GA on Monday, I found a wonderful book with a new and very easy technique for adding color and design to fabric!

This book is by Sherrill Kahn and it's about using permanent ink markers like Sharpie or Bic Mark It (found in office supply stores) and Copic markers (found in art supply stores), to color, among other things, fabric.

Nothing new, right? Well check this out...

Here's my line drawing on a piece of fabric (it doesn't have to be white fabric)...and look what happens to it with Sherrill's technique...

Oooooh! Now you want to know how that happened, right? Well, this change came from a light spray of rubbing alcohol. Here's another example...

I started with plain white fabric and added some Sharpie marks:

Then I spritzed with the alcohol. and got this...

which wasn't exactly what I was looking for, so I added more Sharpie marks to the fabric to fill in the white areas; spritzed again and here's the finished piece...


This is definitely a usable piece. The more I spritz, the more diluted the color becomes and the more filled in the areas are. If you like to see your lines, just go easy on the spritzing.

Here's an added bonus: if you place card stock under your work before spritzing, the ink will bleed onto it and give a wonderful watercolor design on paper.

Sherrill has many more techniques in the book including other ways of applying the rubbing alcohol, applying the marker design, and other materials that take marker designs (wood, plastic, metal, clay and paper). She also describes how to heat set the fabric for washing.

If you live in Athens, you are welcome to flip through my copy of this book. If you'd like to order a copy of your own through me, you can contact me through my website contact address. Go to www.headyfiberarts.com and click on the Contact page. The price will be $11.00 plus shipping, no handling fee.