Applique Background

I have been thinking about the background for my floral appliqué and finally decided to try painting one.

After covering my husband’s work bench…..

…. I had a look at my green paints…..

…and decided to start with a Moss Green….

I added a fair amount of water to the lumpy paint and started brushing it onto the fabric with a foam brush…

You can see the spot that I started in because it is WAY too dark, but I will deliberately cover it up with a clump of flowers!!

After covering the bottom of the background, I added a darker green to the leftover Moss green, and added more brushstrokes….

I truly like the “streaks” of color!!

After cleaning the plastic, I turned the fabric around and started thinking about the sky portion. I started out with a blue, added water, then some white paint, and more white paint, until I found a color I was happy with…

For the sky, I didn’t want to paint streaks, so I decided to use a sea sponge instead…

At this point, I am liking the mottled sky!!

I decided to deepen the blue a bit, but unfortunately didn’t incorporate the paint well, so I ended up with dark blue dots…

You can see them a bit in this photo.

I then decided to go with solid white and create some “clouds” to hide some of the dots. After I held it up…..

… I realized it needed darker areas at the bottom, so I added some brown to the small amount of Moss Green left over and added additional brush strokes.

This was how it looked the next morning after it had dried, toning the colors down a bit….

To finish it off, I ironed it well, then washed it, hoping to restore the fabric’s soft hand..

It is still a little stiffer than regular fabric, and I will have to see if I can sew easily thru it.

I’ll let you know!!