Fabric Sihouettes

A few years ago, a favorite fabric designer of mine, Anna Maria Horner, demonstrated this craft on the Martha Stewart show. Since then, I've wanted to make one of my own. I've had the fabric and paint set aside on my "works-in-progress" shelf (which is full, by the way). Well, over the last two days I finally did it. In fact, I made one just like the example here and I made a set of three smaller ones, which I love.

These directions are adapted from Martha Stewart.
Tools and Materials

• Wren or Friesian templates, both of which are down-loadable from the link above. (This time I used the friesian template.)
• Blank canvas. For my horse I used a 12" x 12". The set is three 8" x 8" canvases.
• Fabric. I recommend a fabric that is all colors in one family, otherwise it will be hard to choose a contrasting paint. Look for something like some of these by Kaffe Fassett.
  
• Staple gun
• Clear medium gloss
• Scissors or utility knife
• Paint
• Paintbrush

Silhouettes How-To

1. Start with a blank canvases. Trim fabric to appropriate size to cover the front and stretch around to the back of the canvas, approximately the dimensions of the canvas plus 2 to 3 inches.Stretch and secure two opposite sides of the fabric onto the canvas back with a staple gun. After folding in the corners neatly, stretch and secure the fabric onto each of the remaining two sides. Always start from the center and work outward so your fabric doesn't pucker.

2. Prime the fabric covered canvas on front and sides with a clear medium gloss like modgepodge to help it adhere. Let dry for 30 minutes. I forgot to do this step, but I do think it would make my fabric smoother. Next time, I guess.

3. Download and print the template that you want. There are other templates on that site, too. Try these farm or ocean animal sets, and you could clearly use any shape or stencil you have. (The small set I made uses a paisley stencil from Michael's craft store.) Cut template out using scissors or a utility knife to create paper silhouette. I traced the template onto stencil paper so it would be more durable for reuse.

4. Position the negative paper silhouette on the fabric canvas where you want your image to be.

5. Select color of paint and paint the stencil. Peel stencil off carefully. Allow paint to dry.

Keep reading to see the development of the mini triptych.

Now I just need to find some more walls...anyone need some art?