Handpainted - Angrakha Style

Monday, April 23, 2012

Handpainted - Angrakha Style

Hi - I bought this really nice summery fabric to get a kurta (shirt) stitched out of it - the ground color is a lovely lemon - apt for the scorching summers.
And it simply called out to me saying it had to be painted. I have never done fabric painting before but I knew I had to try it out.
The first challenge was to think of some pattern - now I knew I did not want the regular paisley (ambi) or rose patterns - and I did not want to do a 'booty' style of pattern where you draw small patterns all over the cloth.
So I searched for designs on the web - again nothing caught my fancy - so I let my imagination doodle some flowers and leaves in my sketchbook. I wasn't still sure of the pattern but I was losing patience. I just took hold of my fabric - roughly measured out where my neck would go - just as I was about to draw the neck line I decided to switch to an angrakha style - so I went ahead and marked lightly where the neck would be cut out. Next I placed the fabric on top of my doodle and simply started stenciling it out - I kept repeating the pattern turning the cloth as I fancied.
I finally had a pattern that looked good to me - I was actually surprised but I finally had something I liked and I could picture the colors that I had to get.
So out I went to the stationary shop and bought the following colors (Fevicryl acrylic paints):
1. Olive Green
2. Indian Red
3. Magenta
4. White
5. Chrome yellow (I couldn't find lemon yellow so decided to make do with this)

For the flowers I mixed white with the different shades of paint and let my imagination run wild. The leaves were mainly done in olive green with a touch of Indian red at certain places.

The outcome (I don't have very good images to show it - hopefully when the kurta is stitched I will update with a better pic)


10 comments:

  1. nice... are you into painting also? i love painting too... in fact glass painting is my fav hobby

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  2. Thanks Tahera - yes I love painting - did try glass painting but years ago :)

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  3. @Vish - thanks - I handed it over to the tailor today - will upload pics of the final product :) - please don't forget to join this site (button on the right hand sidebar)

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  4. this is beautiful shilpa...even i have this habit of painting on sarees and salwars..
    http://megaliving.net/

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  5. This is so lovely :)
    I am horrible at painting though and the last time I did fabric painting was in Class VII as an assignment under SUPW :D :D (and that was the last time I actually picked up a paint brush)

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