
Watercolor embroidery - 7 tricks for your creative embroidery
hace 3 años

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What you should know about watercolor embroidery
- The most suitable fabrics for embroidering watercolors
- What is the best ink for embroidery?
- What brushes to use to paint watercolor on canvas?
- Paint before embroidery or after?
- Amount of water and ink to embroider in watercolor
- How to control watercolor bleeding on fabrics?
- How to transfer an embroidery pattern to a watercolor embroidery?
What you should know about watercolor embroidery
The art of watercolor embroidery is nothing more than the perfect combination between watercolor painting and hand embroidery. This articulation between these two members may seem strange and even difficult at first glance. The truth is that it is not very easy to find good information about this combination. In this sense, I will try to explain in the best way, through this little informative guide, what I consider most important when I combine watercolor with hand embroidery, all on the same canvas.
Once you learn the basics, you'll quickly become more confident creating watercolor applications on your handmade embroidery.
In my opinion, there is one reason above all others to apply watercolor to hand-embroidered fabrics. This reason is as follows: the application of watercolor significantly reduces the processing time of a manual embroidery. Let's imagine that we want to fill a large surface with wool, if I use watercolor this filling will be much faster. If you use threads, you need to put a lot of them next to each other.
Another advantage has to do with the creative area. If you use ink on canvas, you can complete your overview faster, thus stimulating your creativity.
The most suitable fabrics for embroidering watercolors
This is the first question that arises when painting embroidery: what is the best fabric for embroidery and painting?
When it comes to dyeing fabric, the color of the fabric is more important than the type of fabric. White fabrics, regardless of thickness, are the most suitable and easy to dye with watercolors.
Cotton canvases are excellent fabrics for embroidering watercolors, since they are very resistant fabrics, they resist the application of paints well, they are not elastic and they are not transparent.
In this video, "Poem" shows how to paint fabric with watercolors:
What is the best ink for embroidery?
Watercolors work perfectly as complements to embroidery. It is not very important if the inks are suitable for fabrics or not. And even the cheapest paints on the market work well.
However, if you want to make watercolor embroideries on clothes or interior design objects that one day you will have to wash safely without damaging the embroidery, there is a fabric support on the market that is used to solidify any type of ink on the fabric. It will always be worth a try.
What brushes to use to paint watercolor on canvas?
When painting on canvas, it is recommended to use brushes of different sizes to apply the watercolour. By having multiple brush sizes, you can easily use the brush that is the most suitable size for the area you want to paint.
It's also important to note that a larger brush tends to hold more water, so it will affect the amount of color that passes through the fabric. A smaller brush absorbs less water.
Paint before embroidery or after?
Painting with watercolor before or after embroidery does not matter. Up to you. However, you should keep in mind that the effect of the paint sooner or later will make a big difference in the final work. If you paint right at the beginning, before embroidering, you have more freedom to choose the thread and select the stitches that you are going to use, since in this case the ink will only remain on the fabric. If you choose to dye it later, the thread may also absorb some of the dye and the job will not be as perfect.
It is the original color of the embroidery thread that absorbs the ink. Dark embroidery floss does not absorb as much watercolor ink, on the other hand, white embroidery floss absorbs watercolor ink to the point that it can be the same color as the fabric that was painted underneath.
Amount of water and ink to embroider in watercolor
The proportions of water and ink used in the watercolor embroideries have a great impact on the final work. For simplicity, you can use this scheme:
If you use a lot of ink with little water, you will get strong and intense colors. If, on the contrary, using little ink with a lot of water, colors with softer tones are obtained.
How to control watercolor bleeding on fabrics?
It is not easy to control the bleeding of watercolor. And it's also worth remembering that the bleed is part of the charm and authenticity that watercolor brings. However, there are some techniques that help control and reduce bleeding.
If we want to work an embroidery with abstract art, we can let it bleed more freely. However, if we are embroidering a motif more related to architectural style embroidery, more control is required.
For greater control, you should check the amount of water on the brush, if the fabric is dry before adding the paint or if it is damp.
On dry fabrics, the ink flows only in proportion to the water on the brush. If the fabrics are wet, the dye can pass through them as long as the humidity allows it.
How to transfer an embroidery pattern to a watercolor embroidery?
To transfer an embroidery design to a watercolor embroidery, you can apply permanent ink directly to the fabric. This ink has the advantage of remaining solid on the fabric, even if water is applied. This factor is very important because you want your transfer to be clean.
There are embroiderers that use carbon transfer paper, but I prefer to use permanent ink because the end result is cleaner. The carbon particles spread out and make the fabric look grayer or dustier.
I am very happy that you read these tips and I hope that you learn and are encouraged to try watercolor embroidery.
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