Infusions...take 2

Hi everyone, Ruth here with my first inspiration post of the year. Last year you may remember that Rachel did a fabulous post about using infusions and brushos which you can revisit here, so I thought I'd experiment a bit further and use it with fabric. It's something I first tried at a workshop last year and thought I'd incorporate in a project. Here's my fabric plaque...still not sure if it's a WIP as I may add some stitching but hope you enjoy my experiments so far.

I have to be honest it's been a bit hit and miss and although I'm happy with the end result I think I've learnt quite a bit along the way and would do things slightly different next time...but then that's what an inspiration post should also show; firstly inspire you to have a go but also share the pitfalls along the way.
Last year I used some fabric as part of a wall hanging and it was a white printed cotton that we tinted from the back with infusions, only as with all things I couldn't remember how much water I'd added, did I spray before or after I put the infusions on etc etc? Anyway I found some printed cotton and used a mixture of pink and violet infusions on the back of the fabric ('are you cerise' and 'violet storms')

 ...but I think the pattern was busier than the one I'd used previously so you only see a little of the colour showing through but it will still make a pretty background fabric.

So the reason I wanted to show you that first was that if you can create a resist you could make your own printed fabric. To create a resist you could stencil or stamp with gel medium or paint of course.
Firstly I stencilled with snowflake fresco and of course as I hadn't cleaned my stencil properly there was a slight pink tinge to some of the 'swirls' which was my first mistake or is that a....learning opportunity?

Next I wanted to create a picture or design and although I could have used white again I used black fresco paint instead so it stood out and one of the new JOFY stamps (and second thing I'd do differently is leave the area free of white paint where I would be stamping the flower heads). You can stamp in archival but stamping with paint creates a resist and the images look bolder and stay black.

I then used the same infusions on the flower head and 'a bit jaded' on the stalks, I was really pleased how these areas have wicked out as it does give a very subtle effect.

What I then wanted was a very soft colour for the background but infusions aren't light because od the walnut stain in them so I chose 'limoncello' which is probably the lightest and watered it down a lot on the fabric. I wasn't totally happy with this colour as in how it contrasted with the others and in the end added some 'pine needles' distress ink around the edges to try and create a vignette effect.

Ooh and I almost forgot, where I'd stamped the image over the white swirls, I coloured a separate piece of cotton, restamped the flower head, cut out and glued in place.

Lastly I added some gold ink splashes, gold pen, buttons, micro beads and I also used some pitt artist brush pens just to emphasise the colours on the flower heads and stalks.  Finally I mounted it on some wadding and applied to a piece of fabric covered backing board.

Hope you might be inspired to try something new and don't forget there is still another week to join in with our current challenge of  'Swirls ,Whirls and Flourishes'. Ruth x