Painters tape ~ tutorial

 Tree Dreaming Tree by Jane LaFazio

detail by Jane LaFazio

~ 14 inch square artwork by Jane LaFazio

ScotchBlue Painter's Tape is useful for so many creative projects.
 I used it here, to create a tree shape on both paper and cloth. 

1. On a piece of plexiglass, create a tree shape using ScotchBlue Painter's Tape 

First, here's how I printed on paper. The plexiglass is my printing 'plate.' (I'm using acrylic paint for this example)

2. Brayer over the tape, using acrylic paint.

3. Remove the tape (it comes off easily, all in one piece!) 

4. Place your paper (image side down) on top of the plexi and brayer over the back of the paper to create a print. 

5. Lift the paper, and here is the print you'll get

As you can see, the ScotchBlue Painter's Tape served as a mask. In the example below, I created a collage, then printed over it, so that the collage would show through the tree area, masked by the tape. 

In this example, I used the technique described above, but on a collaged paper.

I actually heard of this idea, from a student who had created a large tree on the wall of her daughter's bedroom, using ScotchBlue Painter's Tape. Then she'd painted over the wall, removed the tape, and had a wonderful slightly abstract tree on the wall! Imagine~then you could go in and paint leaves and birds and all kinds of things on the wall. 

.....and I couldn't stop there! I had to try it on fabric too!

detail of small art quilt, by Jane LaFazio

white cotton fabric with pattern created from a stencil

Remember the fabric I created with my new PODS stencil? I selected a small piece of it to use for the background.

create a tree with tape

I created a tree, using ScotchBlue Painter's Tape tearing small pieces, almost like sculpting as I created the tree. I made sure to save the parts of the stencil print that I especially liked, by putting the tape over them to mask them.

tree complete!

Spray with color

Then I sprayed with transparent color.

I could have let it dry

And placed it outside to dry...but I couldn't wait, and pulled the tape off when it was still wet!

But I couldn't wait and peeled the tape of right away!

tadah! 

I love it! (Next time, I might have ironed the fabric to a piece of freezer paper, to keep it flat and stationary, then applied the tape, and sprayed it with color.)

I added a piece of batting to the back and did some free-motion stitching around the tree shape

Now, I wanted to make a small quilt with it, by adding a piece of batting to the back and doing some free motion machine stitching with black thread.

Small art quilt by Jane LaFazio

This post is a collaboration with ScotchBlue Painter's Tape, whose dedication to recognizing and rewarding creativity led to this post.  Get started to win some coolprizes by clicking here.