Plus, along with these ideas, you’ll tap into an entire community of thriving and creative artists just like you. And, with this free membership to the Cloth Paper Scissors community, you’ll discover a support network of thousands of mixed-media artists to help you along your journey.
4 Free Paper & Fabric Painting Ideas + Mixed Media Painting Techniques
In the mixed-media artist’s eyes, everything is a canvas—from paper to objects to, well, canvas. In fact painting fabric is fun and accessible choice that can take many forms, using many different fabric painting methods and supplies. You can use mixed-media painting techniques for painting backgrounds or to add a special touch to a collage. Painting on paper or fabric can also substitute for dyeing and add interest and texture to many mixed-media projects..
What’s inside?
In this free mixed media tutorial, you’ll learn how to paint fabric with many different media such as oil sticks, watercolors, and acrylics. Plus, you will learn how to combine fabric painting supplies with other mixed-media materials and techniques such as stitching, photo transfers, and collage.
Fabric Paint Designs on Canvas
The Worhshop: Canvas Photo Quilts by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer
Paint on fabric can help you obscure details and develop layers in your mixed-media art. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer describes how build emotion while protecting privacy through layers of journaling, photo transfers, and using oil sticks.
Painting on Fabric
Watercolor Tote: From Canvas Album to Carryall by April Derrick
April Derrick combines her love creating art on small pieces of canvas with watercolors, journaling and painting on fabric to create a colorful tote using beginner sewing skills.
Painting on Paper
Fragile Fusion: Making Durable Layers with Delicate Papers by Rebekah Meier
Some of the best mixed-media painting ideas come from trying to solve a problem. Rebekah Meier discovered that by applying layers of tissue paper, pain, and ink to fusible web, she could turn the fragile tissue into an art material that is quite durable. Adding embroidery, modeling paste, or stenciled and stamped designs creates a textural art material with lots of possibilities.
Collage, Photo Transfer, & Fabric Painting Designs
Photo, Paint, Stitch: Create Whimsical Images from Your Own Photographs by Kelli Nina Perkins
Kelli Perkins invites you to plunge in and whip up a funky artwork with lots of style. Kelli mixes collage and photo transfer techniques with bleach, fabric paint, and foil. She says this artistic process is virtually foolproof for beginners, with room for lots of flair if you’re already experienced.
8 FUN THINGS TO PAINT ON (OTHER THAN PAPER)
My kids would paint for hours if given the choice. If your kids are budding Picassos why not vary up your standard art projects on paper? Think “outside the paper” and give your kids a creative challenge they’ll happily take on with these unique ways to paint without paper. From stick painting to cereal box villages, blocks and styrofoam art, these new painting techniques will open up a fantastic new world of creating art with different mediums.
Leaves Painting (via The Artful Parent) Falling leaves are fun to crunch, pile up, and … draw and paint on! You can do some pretty interesting things with these canvases provided by nature and the best part is that there’s an abundance of them.
Stick Painting (via Soul Makes) Sticks that you find lying around outside can be a great source of artistic inspiration. Check out these painted sticks as an example of the kinds of pretty colors that you and your child can create.
Egg Carton Painting (via Art Club Blog) Egg cartons make interesting canvases, with their series of peaks and valleys. Kids can create textured and multi-dimensional art with these simple, recycled containers.
Wood Scrap Painting (via The Chocolate Muffin Tree) Take advantage of wood scraps you may have lying around and get the kids ready to paint some beatiful, artistic collages.
Neon Color Blocks (via Armelle Blog) Small, wooden blocks are the perfect canvas for painting. These are a bright, neon color, but you could have your child paint any of their favorite colors or patterns to create their own set of custom play blocks.
Styrofoam Painting (via Kids’ CBC Parents) Here’s unique up-cycled art project to make fun mosaic colored shapes out of something you’d normally throw away.
Painting on Canvas (via Our Fifth House) It might be obvious, but using actual canvases is also a great option to using paper. The things your child paints on a canvas can be real artwork that can be hung and admired for quite a while.
Painting Cereal Box Villages (via Bella Dia) With your help re-shaping houses out of plain cereal boxes, your kids can go to town painting their own villages for some fun art work and creative play!
