Painting on fabric

Today was a good day for painting fabric, but not the best day for photographing it!

I wanted more landscape colors and I decided to try a different 

approachwith Setacolor transparent paints.

I used a faintly printed sepia cotton fabric as a base,

 which I figured would give texture and a warm undertone.

I always know that whatever I paint will be cut up into pieces for collage,

so I usually try out different techniques in different areas.

I started with these smooth and swirly strokes, then dried and heat set this piece.

Next I added more color, then dried and heat set it again.

Finally, I added more color and gave it a final ironing.

It's a very overcast day here, so the photos don't really show the intensity of the colors.

What I was attempting to do by heat setting between steps was to preserve the brush strokes 

of a step, then layer over it with more brush strokes, instead of 

having each layer of strokes blend in with the next.

I painted a few more pieces of fabric, but I'll wait until tomorrow to photograph them.

Hopefully the light will be better!

Eventually these pieces will be used in ladscapes - I promise!