Monet Challenge

After following a few links I discovered the Textile Tuesday Challenge and I was intrigued. I decided on Monday to join in on this week’s challenge as soon as it was posted. The challenge was Claude Monet. At first I was a little bit lost, thinking that this was totally out of my comfort style since I’m not much of an impressionist person. After a little bit of research I fell in love with the first painting I saw which was his Sunrise painting and then pulled out my supplies to get started.

I used 100% cotton sheeting (fairly thick stuff), standard anchor embroidery floss and Pebeo Setacolour Shimmer paints which I diluted so I could use them like watercolours. I should state for the immediate record that I’ve generally never been overly keen on watercolours as a medium. I love what other people do with them, but I’ve never liked what I’ve done with watercolours. I’ve just always loved the texture of acrylics, oils, pastels and other media.

So, I ended up working fabric paints like watercolours, which is a medium i’m not found of, and in a painting style that I’ve never really been drawn to. The result? I absolutely loved it. In fact, before the paint had even dried on the fabric I was contemplating about going through my stack of photos for other images that I could use with this technique. I’m absolutely in love. I loved it before I put stitching on the piece, and I loved it even more after. I have to say, this was an extremely successful challenge for me, and isn’t the point of a challenge to get you to think out of the box and step out of your comfort zone.

Have you stepped out of your comfort zone recently??