PAINTINGS
About the process…painting with fabric
I had been painting in oils for 40 years when I decided to take a week-long workshop at Bennington College entitled “Painting with Fabric”. At this workshop I was introduced to collage on canvas - gluing fabric onto the canvas and then painting with acrylics. I had always been attracted to pattern. Even in my earliest works I loved to integrate designs and shapes to bring color and movement into the composition. I was very intrigued with the idea of incorporating the actual patterned fabrics into my paintings.
I totally fell in love with this process. I begin each piece as I would any other painting, by stretching canvas over wooden stretchers strips and then drawing the entire composition for the work in charcoal. Then I block out the shapes blocked in acrylic paint. This way I can plan out what the painting will look like before I begin gluing the materials. I then cut the fabric and glue it to fit into the shapes of the drawing, overpainting with acrylics as needed. I layer the work back and forth with fabric and paint until the surface of it is thick and rich in color, pattern and texture.
