Printed Fabric Bee Reveal! Vintage!

Time for another reveal for The Printed Fabric Bee. Lynn Krawcyzk chose "vintage" as her theme. I decided to explore the idea of vintage bottles.

I started with an image of bottles and cut out the shapes.

Then traced them on sticky-back fun foam.

Then cut them out.

Then stuck them to pieces of styrofoam from a recycled meat tray.

I chose blue, teal and gray paints thinking that might suggest vintage bottles.

I did a test print here. I like the idea that the bottles are translucent. You can see through them as if they are sitting on a window sill.

I printed an 8x18 piece to send to Lynn (that's her requested size), the 6x6 for our monthly give-away and another piece to keep in my stash and for my records. 

After printing the bottles, I wanted to add another layer of design. (Plus the "rules" of the Printed Fabric Bee require at least two printed layers.) So, I used my splatter brush to add a bit of black. It gave it a bit of depth.

You may remember that I when I created fabric for our petroglyphs theme, I wished I had a splatter brush. I've since purchased one! Definitely a nice additional to my box of painting tools.

It still needed something, so I drew this tiny little stem with tiny little leaves in a few of the bottles.

Here is the finished 6x6.

Here is Lynn's piece. It's like three shelves in a decorative medicine cabinet.

As usual, I like to review what worked and what didn't work with my fabrics for The Printed Fabric Bee.

Successful:

• The shape of the bottles and the subtle difference between them.
• Sticky back fun foam stamps are so fast and easy!
• I love the layers of paint where the bottles overlap.
• The paint application is a bit inconsistent which sort of makes it look like light reflecting on the bottles.
• The splatter adds depth.
• The line drawn stem is sweet.

Less Than Successful:

• The shapes of the bottle don't fill up the 6x6 size too well. In fact, I'm not sure I love the arrangement of bottles on the larger piece of fabric either. 
• Paint might have been applied more smoothly with a brayer.
• The color palette isn't too sophisticated and doesn't really read as vintage. I should I have mixed a light, medium and dark cobalt.
• The line drawn stem is a little too sweet.

Check out all the interpretations of "vintage!" Find links to all the artists on The Printed Fabric Bee blog. Plus, you can leave a comment on Lynn's blog for a chance to win the collection of 6x6 fabrics. Comment before July 10.