Hand-painted Textiles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Painting on Fabric

by Sarah Campbell

This beautiful and inspirational book written by a doyenne of British textile design explores the art of painting and making patterns on cloth.

Fabrics bring colour and vibrance to our lives, adding inventiveness and charm to both our clothes and our domestic interiors.

In this book, lifelong textile designer Sarah Campbell takes you through her world of pattern and colour to uncover the joys of design from dots, stripes and checks to more surprising decorative solutions. Painting straight onto fabric is a very different experience to designing for digital production. Everything is unique, the placing of the patterns and colours is in your hands. The beauty is that the pattern doesn’t have to repeat - there can be just one bird or just one square, if it’s in the right place. Beautifully illustrated with Sarah’s colourful and internationally acclaimed work, her fabric designs show the comforting rhythm and universal language of pattern.

- Learn how to create your own unique designs using a range of tools and techniques including brushes and potato-cuts, stencils and simple ‘kitchen cupboard’ resists.

- Explore the delights of painting on different fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk and calico/muslin.

- Develop your understanding of scale, colour, tonality and the organisation of pattern ideas, alongside suggestions on how to use your finished fabrics.

• ISBN10: 1789940648
• ISBN13: 9781789940640
• Publish Date: 16 February 2023
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 21 January 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Imprint: Herbert Press Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 176
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Hand-painted Textiles is an accessible and information rich guide with tutorials for surface painting on fabric by Sarah Campbell. Due out 18th April 2023 from Bloomsbury on their Herbert Press imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.

This is a well written guide which is logically arranged and useful. It reads like a precisely planned and run workshop with a skilled facilitator/teacher. The chapters are arranged thematically: tools and supplies, making marks/getting started, making stamps, masking areas, stencils, resists, silks, pattern and color placement, matching and coordinating, bleach, some tutorials, and lots (and lots) of ideas for utilizing the fabrics, including some beautiful examples of painted fabric which is further embellished with embroidery and beadwork. I liked that the author doesn't push one particular brand and brand names are figleafed/obscured in tutorial photos.

Five stars. The book is absolutely stuffed full of inspirational and useful ideas and projects. It would be a great choice for public or school library acquisition, maker's groups, activity groups, classroom/workshop instruction, and the home studio. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.