Creating The Look of Rusty, Old, Stained Fabric

A white piece of fabric can be so intimidating to work on, that's one of the reasons I like to start with fabric that has a little color and texture when I plan on collaging and painting it.

I like to create a variety of warm and cool browns.

I mix watery solutions of textile paint, this is a great way to use up the remainders of paint left in the jar. One of my favorite colors is made by combining Setacolor's buttercup yellow and purple, it makes a gorgeous warm ochre brown.

I crumple pieces of dry white pfd cotton fabric and dunk it in the paint solution.

 

Maybe you might want to use gloves, lol, for some reason I never think of doing things like that.

 Then I squeeze out the fabric

and lay it on the table, partially crumpled, to dry. As it dries the pigment in the paint is drawn to the creases in the fabric.

After it has dried, I iron the fabric to reveal all the beautiful texture.

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