Enoki, Step 2

I began this little project yesterday by painting the Evolon all over in a swirl of pale yellows and pinks . I had already fused Steam a Seam Lite to the back side. Then I drew my Enoki on the back side of the piece on the SaS paper and cut the whole thing out. Last night, the last thing I did was to outline the individual fungi with a brown fabric marker.

Today, I mixed up several sorts of paints- regular craft acrylic, Setacolor and finally, just for a giggle, Dye na Flo. The Dye na Flo DID work but the colours were far too strong. Setacolor and acrylic worked fine, as I knew they would so I experimented with colours and got a nice pinky,purply,brown and watered it down to several different consistencies. I painted my fungi- shadows, deep shadows and highlights and then ironed over the whole thing when it was pretty dry. Finally, once I was fairly satisfied, I removed the backing paper and fused the whole to the background fabric- a nice pinky, greeny mottled hand dye. The result is as follows....

 I cropped this neatly for displaying the pic on my blog but the raggedy edges are still on and I will trim it to 12"x12" eventually. It SHOULD look about like this in the end.

I will play with some stitching and the quilting and will do any paint touchups as I see fit- e.g.- that little stem at the bottom right that runs off at an angle. It is too pale and I MAY add a bit of paint to tone it down a bit IF I keep the whole stem. It may get lopped off when I trim. You could start to bet now if you wish! Will she keep it? Will she prune it off?

Would you believe...

I DID manage to get a little sunprint yesterday after all.Because it was so windy, the leaves on top of the fabric blew about somewhat so some edges are not crisp but when I get the photo posted, you will see that, although it is an unspectacular example, the process DID work. It was cold, windy and not sunny at all except for a very few minutes.The UV is always there even though it is not very strong. So, in answer to the question, " yes, Virginia, one CAN sunprint with Setacolor in the winter months". Just tie your pretties down well and be patient. I think if I had pinned some laces on instead of leaves, it might have been more successful under the circumstances.

So, here they are ! I added these once they had been edited. You can see that it DID work but it is not gorgeous. Less wind might have helped, but  at least it did actually "print".