Painting on linen tote bag with soft body acrylic paint: our experience

Many people know that anything you can create with your hands is a great way to unleash your creativity.

However, not every one of us will be able to pick up a chisel with a hammer and effortlessly produce a marble sculpture three meters high...

But many of us painted or drew at least once in this lifetime. And today we’d like you to recall how fun it may be. Moreover, these days many convenient materials are available to us.

In this post we’d like to talk about painting with acrylic on linen.

Acrylic paint on linen and what to expect

Painting with acrylic is a simple and enjoyable way to create something one-of-a-kind.

But here it is important to choose the right base for your future artwork. The best materials for painting on are natural fabrics - popular denim, delicate silk or charismatic linen.

For this painting project we chose our white linen bag from Welna collection. Linen handbags and totes are perfect for projects like this.

Acrylic paint is polymeric, which means that its coloring pigment does not penetrate into the fibers, but rather covers them with a film - dried acrylic paint makes the fabric more dense, inelastic and waterproof.

Acrylic paint artwork: what do you need to begin?

In this project, we wanted to use both - hand painting and stencil techniques. We'll need a large flat and a small pointy acrylic paint brushes. One more thing that is very necessary is something to put under the fabric - it can be a plastic sheet or a board. We will place this “remedy” under the area intended for painting to protect the other side of the tote and the table from staining.

We’ll be working on a floral wreath - painting flowers in acrylic step by step.

Let's see what comes to life...

Lay your ironed linen tote flat. Acrylic is quite thick. So, for thinning acrylic paint with water, make sure you have a good volume glass - you will also be washing your brushes in it.

Before painting on linen, let's make a sketch - arrange the elements schematically.

The palette will help to mix the colors well. And that palette, by the way, can be an improvised tool - an old plate for example...

...besides, a plate can serve you well when drawing a circle.

The idea we want to fulfill holds a space for an initial - we’ll be using a stencil for it. If you don’t have one of those little printers, a stencil can be made using an adhesive film. First, draw the initial on the adhesive film.

Now carefully cut it, leaving voids - those will be filled with paint later.

Now we transfer our sketch to the surface of the linen bag. Don't press too hard.

Once the sketch is transfered, it's time to srart coloring. We now will pour a small amount of acrylic onto the palette - scarlet and white for starters.

White is amongst the most necessary acrylic paint colors for both experts and beginners - it can serve as a base for creating pastel colors and it can also help in correcting some tiny flaws on white fabrics. Mix the colors, but not to a full blend - this will give the color a greater visual texture.

And almost immediately we will see the play of light and shadow.

Paint the upper two flowers densely enough - they will differ from roses at the bottom.

Fill the feather shape with blue acrylic paint. To give that feather a bit more body and volume, paint its lower part in a lighter blue color.

We’ll apply the same technique on the leaves: from dark green acrylic paint below to lighter green above.

Use the same shade of green for the rose leaves to maintain color harmony.

We now will use the yellow-orange color and block the other flowers with it.

We’ll use a little bit of black acrylic to show shadows. Black can be applied in lines, as well as the shapes of shadows.

...and also use some pastel acrylic paint for background motives - such details will enrich the ornament.

And now the fun part that your inner child will love the most, probably - the sprays! Use a slightly damp brush with paint on it and hold it above the painted surface. Now tap that brush with another one - this should drop down some light color specks. The main thing here is not to overdo it.