Doesn't the oil in the paint spread, making an oil spot? I've never used oils, as in theatre we can't have flammable paints. Before acrylics, we used to make our own paint, using hoof-and-horn glue. We called it casein paint. You mixed the ground up stuff (hooves and horns, apparently) up with water, heated it and mixed in dry pigment. Perhaps this is what they used in olden times for fabric. You can still get that kind of glue-it's called "mucilage" or possibly "hide" glue, the brown stuff that used to come in a glass bottle with an angled rubber top. It's hard to find, though. If your local stationary or craft store doesn't have it, try a wood working store. You can mix it with dry paint pigment or dye (if the dye is alcohol based, you have to dissolve the dye in alcohol first, but then can mix in the thinned glue. If I recall correctly; I haven't done this in years.) You could use poster paints for the colorant, they are just dry pigment without a binder. The glue acts as a binder. Another name for this might be "milk paint". This is sometimes found on old furniture. Apparently it's a pain to remove from furniture if you're refinishing. I've never come across it myself, but I think it's a version of this type of casein-based paint. Sharon C. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alexandria Doyle Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 6:41 AM To: Historical Costume Subject: Re: [h-cost] Adding color to silk
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Dianne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I can't imagine that watercolors or oils would work well at all. > > I would either use acrylic, heavily thinned with a textile medium, or > bite the bullet and buy silk paints from Dharma. > > Dianne > Thanks to all that have commented. I just have a question, for those that reccomended acrylic paints, do you use oil paints at all? One of my thoughts here, is that we have some evidence that fabrics were painted on for clothing prior to 1600, if only for children's or special occasion clothing that wasn't worn more than once or twice. There is the painting of Elizabeth from Bess of Hardwick Hall fame that looks to be painted fabric - though whether that was a real dress is not certain either. Anyway, it would seem like the oil paint would have been what was used to permanently mark fabric. I have only just begun working with oil paints myself, so I don't know how they handle in this case, whereas I have used acrylics on fabric. I had found that if the paint is thinned it doesn't crack or flaked, but the chance it will soak to areas you don't want, can be problematic. I suspect that I will be marking out the outfit I am making on my fabric, and then I'll test painting techniques on the scraps. Purchasing additional/specialty paints and dyes at this point is cost prohibitive when I do have these other paints in house and I'm sitting at home right now waiting for the plumber to show. thanks alex -- "I'm buying this fabric/book now in case I have an emergency...you know, having to suddenly make presents for everyone, sickness,flood, injury, mosquito infestations, not enough silk in the house, it's Friday..." ;) _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
