Painting On Fabric

She's threading together a full life in quilting

When Susan Brubaker Knapp was 10, she made a quilt with her mother. About 100 original quilts and thousands of hours of work later, Knapp, now 47, has become an internationally recognized art quilter. With a home studio on West Center Avenue in Mooresville filled with an overwhelming stash of fabric and thread, she has learned new fabric art techniques to share with others in her books, DVDs and presentations. But when she was 10, her quilting experience wasn't very meaningful. "My mom almost forced me to make that quilt," she said. "I was not interested in it at all." Knapp did not quilt again until she was in her late 20s and decided to make a baby quilt for her pregnant best friend. She took a quilting class and became more interested in the art. "I got really into quilting when (my kids) were younger," she said. "Quilting was a way for me to do something that stayed put." Her children are now 14 1/2 and 11. Her younger daughter has a sewing machine that she occasionally uses to make little projects, while Knapp's oldest is artistic but is not interested in fabric arts. But if Knapp's past is any indication, their feelings might change. And family history shows an inclination toward quilting - Knapp has three known generations of quilters preceding her. "Maybe it's genetic," she said. While Knapp started with traditional quilts, she has gathered fame and expertise in art quilting - a more detailed form of quilting. "The whole art quilt movement has happened just in the last 30 years," she said. In 2006, she made her first art quilt after a class on painting a realistic human face. She created a mermaid and went home to put it on fabric. She dived into the quilt - now titled "Teach Me to Hear Mermaids Singing" - barely sleeping until it was done. "I had never done anything like this before," said Knapp. "I had no idea I had this in me." The quilt was featured in an international quilt festival, and it was the first of many festivals and competitions her award-winning quilts have been entered in. "It's really fun to see your work hanging," she said. Knapp has since produced more than 70 art quilts, most of which are for sale with prices that range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. She spends 20 to 40 hours on her smaller quilts, and her high level of production has given her more visibility in the quilting community. "The more I've done, I've gotten a lot of requests to teach," said Knapp. And she enjoys teaching her craft, typically traveling five or six days a month to speak at quilting guilds - clubs that provide educational programs to quilters at all levels of experience. Already booked solid for this year, next spring Knapp is traveling to the Netherlands and possibly Germany to speak and in 2013, she is going to New Zealand. It helps that Mooresville is a very quilter-friendly community - it has two quilting guilds, Lake Norman Quilters and Mooresville Centerpiece Quilter Guild. "It is very unusual to have two fairly large guilds in a town this size," said Knapp, who belongs to Lake Norman Quilters. She has written a series of columns for the magazine Quilting Arts on a more innovative art technique that she has mastered, thread-sketching. Thread-sketching consists of drawing with thread on the surface of fabric. Many of Knapp's art quilts are based on her photography and she creates the designs on fabric by thread-sketching, sometimes over hand-painted fabric. She also experiments with putting nontraditional materials in her quilts, like Tyvek - a type of paper-like plastic wrap. Knapp has produced two DVDs teaching thread-sketching and other techniques. In October 2009, she came out with her first patterns book, "Appliqué Petal Party," and this month, her second book, "Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art," will be released by C&T Publishing. Knapp said many assume her success from quilting has come from natural talent, but she argues that anyone can achieve the same level of success with enough practice and work. "I've taken a couple of classes but not a lot," said Knapp. "Most of it has been experimentation and lots of practice. It's like anything else." Knapp has watched the quilting industry grow over the years, as there are now more than 21 million quilters in the United States alone, with 14 percent of households having at least one active quilter. The estimated total value of the industry is currently $3.8 billion, up 9 percent from 2006. "People tend to think of (quilting) as something your grandma does," said Knapp. "There's a lot of people doing it now.

Material Painting – A Unique Model Of Art - Free Articles ...

Painting is a exclusive art and from very long time it has attracted people towards itself, either to learn this art or to admire this unique art. Paintings are the expressions of the painters and express the views and feelings of the painters. Michelangelo, L. D. Vinci, etc., are some of the great painters of their times, and they have given a few awe-inspiring paintings to the world. Painting is done on walls, potteries, fabrics, glasses etc. But, among them fabric painting has become a famous household handcraft.

Material painting, a unique art of painting, finds its lively expression on the fabrics. Painting on fabric has become popular as a household craft work. Some people are practicing this art either as a hobby or for a livelihood. The procedure and method of this painting are quite simple and at an affordable expense attractive paintings can be carved out on the fabric. This is why the demand for painted fabrics is increasing today.

Ladies dresses, men shirts, hand bags, curtains, wall hangings, cushion covers, upholstery, and more are decorated with the help of the material paints. Don’t think that if you are not expert in painting then you can’t be a fabric painter. You only need is sound knowledge on different methods of fabric painting and some innovative skills and the rest is done automatically.

It’sall about applying heat and mixing colors in proportions. A fabric painter works like a chemist whose work is to mix colors and perceive the reactions. However, the fact is that a fabric painter must know that how much heat and color is required so that a particular category of painting is created. The best famous section among the fabric paintings is dyeing, silk-screening, layering, batik painting, dyeing and water painting.

Among the different types of paintings on fabric, the simplest and common form is dyeing. In dyeing part of the fabric is tied and merged into the solutions of color dye while another part is abstained from dyeing. When these fabrics are folded to give a particular shape, various patterns are formed by the integration of colored and uncolored portions. However, the most favored fabric painting is the Batik Painting which is prepared by blending to dye and wax.

Batik painting was originated in the Javas Indonesian island. The unusual tapestry, freedom of art and ensemble of colors of the Batik paintings mesmerizes the painting lovers. On this type of painting, first of all the waxing of the fabric is done, then it is dyed, and lastly it is de-waxed.

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