My most recent project started after trying my hand at screen printing. I did a couple large designs, but will get back to them once I've made a little more room in my studio. The process got me thinking on the lines of wearable art. What I came up with were these little art patches! First I do really quick pencil sketches on raw canvas. I never know what cheeky little characters are going to pop out! And in fact, some of these sketches have become designs for my larger t-shirt patches:
Next, I draw the outlines with this wonderful glass pen – last year's birthday gift from my friends Jacky and Rachel. (Thank you so much! I love it.) It's perfect for drawing on canvas with a water-based fabric paint:
Then I fill in the backgrounds with white. I use a combination of my glass pen and a brush:
Next, the colors go in! I use a combination of fabric paints and inks:
After heat-fixing the paintings with an iron (low heat for 4 minutes), I sew around each edge, cut them out and over-lock the edges. The final step is ironing a fabric adhesive on the back. The backing paper peels off and the patch can be ironed on to any clean fabric (without fabric softener). I was thrilled to find they adhered perfectly to sweatbands!You can purchase this one now in my etsy shop cookiechang.etsy.com:
