Flour Paste Resist

I've been wanting to try this resist method for years, but for whatever reason, didn't get around to it until last week. The process is explained well in Jane Dunnewold's Art Cloth book and Sue Beevers'  Off-the-Shelf Fabric Painting book. There have also been numerous articles about it in Quilting Arts Magazine over the past few years.  Basically I made a paste of half water, half flour, whisking it smooth.  I stretched and pinned my fabric to a padded board with T-pins.  The fabric I used had been previous ice-dyed, but needed more texture and pattern.  I used a squeegee and applied a thin layer of the paste to the fabric. I used a notched trowel, like those used for tile setting, and made some patterns into the paste with that.  I also used a bamboo skewer to do some doodling and writing.  You need to make sure you are scratching all the way through to the fabric, so there will be an opening through which to brush in the paint. Then I set it outside to dry.

Once it dried, I crushed it to get crackles through the paste.  I even crunched it up and put it in the freezer for a few hours and then did more crushing of it.  It was hard to see what and how many openings I had created .  I stretched it out again on the padded surface and used a synthetic, flat,  acrylic paintbrush to push in black Setacolor paint.  I painted over the whole piece really pressing that paint into the surface in many directions.  Then I set it outside to dry.

I let it sit for three days so the paint would really adhere to the fabric.  Then I let it soak in a bucket of water to loosen the paste.  I rinsed out all the paste, let it dry, and ironed it to further set the paint.  Then I washed it twice.

Closeup 1

Closeup 2

Closeup 3

This piece was sun-printed first.  I used a stencil in applying the paste and the trowel.