Work in progress: painting hair again

I spent yesterday making a fresh start. I decided to get a fresh piece of fabric and paint the hair again.

I started by going to my supply cabinets. I pulled out each of the paints and inks that I was willing to consider and I painted a sample. There were several important characteristics I wanted to watch:

• how much they wicked (spread) on untreated fabric
• how easily the paint spread with a soft brush, and
• how stiff the fabric felt after they dried.

For this particular piece, I immediately eliminated Jacquard Dye-na-flow and Daler-Rowney FW acrylic ink. Both spread too much on the pimatex cotton I wanted to use. Dr. Ph. Martin’s Craft Ink was too heavy and opaque, and Golden Fluid Acrylic was too stiff after drying. The Jacquard Textile Paint was okay, but too opaque for what I was hoping for, even after adding the colorless extender. I had some ZimPrints Fabric Paint, but they were too thick. (They are intended for rubber stamping on fabric.)

I decided to see what I could add to my Tsukineko inks to make them usable for this project. I had Dharma Pigma Thickener which seemed to yellow the colors. I tried the aloe gel again, just to make give them another try but the aloe gel I had was too jelly-like and didn’t blend well. I settled on using the Tsukineko All-Purpose Ink mixed with Jacquard colorless extender. I sacrificed the watercolor look I was imagining, but at least I didn’t have to continually fight with the ink spreading uncontrollably.

Now, time for more decisions…

In the meantime, I’m linking to Freshly Pieced: Work in Progress Wednesday.