One of my favorite ways to create texture is to paint fabric with gesso.  The fabric becomes stiff and also becomes a canvas that you can work with!  When I heard Andie's challenge was fabric over at the Eclectic Paperie, I was super excited because I just LOVE to gesso fabric and I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to try!

I started with white cotton fabric.  Squirt on the gesso and spread around a thin layer.  I use a credit card or room key card to make a super thin layer without brush strokes!

I also gesso'ed a couple of other fabrics just to play around - they will make fantastic canvases later on!

I hung them up to dry.

Then I took out my inspiration piece.  I found two of these Peony plates at Goodwill - awesome find!! But two plates, just didn't work for me on the wall.  So I thought I could create a little canvas to become the 3rd 'plate!'  I used a 6x6 canvas, that are not gesso'ed, to start with a cream color!

I found a piece of scrap paper to create a background and glued it down and covered it with clear gesso, so we could see the patterns.  When it was dry, I ended up mixing titan buff color paint and acrylic glazing to coat it with a transparent color!

When the gesso'ed fabric was dry, I painted the fabric with colors to match my plates. Once dry, the fabric easily tears into strips.

Using Helmar 450 adhesive and the fabric, I played around until I made ruffled circles that looked like flowers! I glued them down and placed unpainted yellow fabric in the middle! 

Then I cut out green leaves and I tried to match the leaf shapes to the ones on the plate. Even plain, they looked pretty.  I used more paint and my white gel pen to create the details to make them pop!

I doodled, found an amazing quote, "Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live" and finished off the project!

(And now I need to make something to go with my Russian Doll Canvas too....)

So now, go play with fabric!! I promise you, fabric is amazing to use with mixed media projects!! Come and join the EPlay challenge!!

-Karen