Carolynburger’s Blog

By: www.carolynburger.com

Nov 01 2009

Tags: acrylic project, new idea, painting pillows, painting project, textile medium

Category: Artist, artwork, hobbies, painting, Uncategorized

2 Comments

Our new gallery at the Esplanade on Marco Island has been open for almost a month now. More people are returning to our beautiful island for the season. (It’s getting cold up north!) So we are starting to get more visitors to our gallery and selling more.

With the encouragement of a friend, I have begun to paint decorative pillows to include in my gallery. At first I was reluctant because it seemed like a difficult task painting on a rounded form that might be difficult for correcting mistakes. But now I am finding it to be a lot of fun without many problems at all. Before beginning, I had to find a place to find a textile medium to mix with my acrylic paint. I found that Golden Acrylic Textile Medium works well. It keeps the paint soft when the acrylic paint dries. Acrylic paint seems to be the best choice since it dries easily and has bright colors. I sketch the picture on the pillow with a charcoal pencil and then choose my color palette depending upon the color of the pillow and the subject of the painting. Soft sable brushes work the best on the material. I prefer soft silky pillows. The paint just glides on so easily.

Right now I am painting flowers on the pillows, but plan to also paint Florida birds, palm trees and boats. Customers can also order a pillow of a certain color and type of painting. I think this holds a lot of promise for making a product that people can use to decorate their home or give as a unique gift to someone who has everything. And it doesn’t cost as much as a regular framed painting.