For a secret santa gift, I bought a cushion cover online and hand painted the giftee’s lovely cats on there, so he could love both his actual cats and their images ☺️
Needless to say, the gift was well received 👍 and was a nice way to do something personal.
Here’s how I did it.
Supplies:
- Cushion cover bought from Redbubble
- Acrylic paint: Black, White, Red, Yellow, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Blue, Green
- POSCA paint pens: fine black, fine white
- Fabric medium – to make sure the paint would stay on the fabric an not wash off
- Pictures of the cats to be painted
Tools:
- Thin and thick paintbrushes
- Cocktail stick (for fur effect)
- Kitchen towels
- Paint tray
- An iron to heat seal the paint
Method:
- I drew some very basic drawings to see how I should paint this. I’ve never painted a tabby cat before and honestly it was quite daunting. I tried some very basic attempts but couldn’t really get it right.
For all acrylic paint that you use, mix this to 60% paint 40% fabric medium at all times. POSCA paint pens do work on fabric and don’t wash out.
- Then I decided to take a leap of faith and just get going!
I googled for help and found this article which helped me begin, which I relied on throughout the process.I began applying a base coat to the cats – the black one became the tabby, and the white became the black and white cat. Try to have the brush as dry as possible at all times, so between colours, make sure you rub it on some kitchen towel to remove excess moisture.This is the before (below) and I shamefully forgot to take a pic of this completed step 😔
- One that layer was complete and dry (1 day later), I began adding some highlights with the yellow, paintbrush. No detail at this point.
- Then I added the same for the black and white cat and added some red into the tabby.
- Then, I really wasn’t sure where to go with the tabby! How would I transform it into something awesome? I continued adding highlights in black using the same pattern shown above, and then white, to mirror the shape of cat. I hoped it would come to something.Because I wasn’t sure here, I literally just added colours until it looked good.
At the very end, I added detail using a cocktail stick for the whiskers, and fluffy parts of the cat, but I also used a dotting technique with the POSCA paint pens (white and black) to give shadow and highlights.Lastly, I covered any undefined edges around the cat with the POSCA paint pens to tidy it up.
- Finally, I hot ironed over the entire painting (with a towel in between) to heat seal the fabric medium.
kayleighbcrafts 