Quilt Tips for Painting with Inktense Ink Pencils Embroidery Project

Gather the supplies per the materials list above.
a. Please note Derwenk makes Inktense Ink Pencil® sets as well as Inktense Watercolor Pencil® sets. For painting on fabrics make sure you get the Inktense Ink Pencils®. The pencils come in sets of 12, 24, 36 and 72. I started with the set of 12, but immediately purchased the set of 72 as I was so enthralled with this technique.
b. All fabrics must be made of 100% natural fibers, cotton, linen, silk etc. All fabrics should be prewashed except PDF fabrics such as Kona PDF fabric. The fabric color will influence the transparent ink color, so white or light natural fabrics are suggested.
c. Some relatively inexpensive paint brushed are marked “for fabrics”, these are recommended as well as boar bristled brushes. Watercolor brushes are too soft.

The pencils look very different when wet from what they look like when they are dry. Make a color chart so that you will know what the colors will look like on your project. On water color paper make a small scribble with each of your pencils; write the name and color number below each scribble. With a slightly wet brush swipe the bottom of your scribble to see what the intense color will be on your project.

Make a test of the mediums to see which prove more colorfast on your fabric. On a scrap of your material draw a multitude of ovals with a micron pen.
a. The first oval in the picture the pencil was applied on dry fabric and then spread with aloe gel.
b. On the second oval aloe was applied to the fabric, the pencil was colored on the oval and then it was spread with aloe gel.
c. On the third oval, GAC 900 was applied to the fabric, the pencil was colored on the fabric and then spread with more GAC 900.
d. On the 4th oval, the fabric was dampened with Deco Art Medium, the color was applied and then spread with Deco Art Medium.
e. The 5th oval was dampened with Deco Art Medium and then spread with aloe gel
f. The 6th sample shows a dampening with aloe gel, the pencil applied and then the color was spread with aloe gel.
g. The 7th sample was dampened with GAC 900, colored and then spread with GAC.
h. The 8th sample was colored on dry fabric and then spread with GAC
Now comes the hard part of the test. Let the fabric sit 24 hours.

Slice the fabric across the center of the ovals.

Heat set the ink by placing a pressing cloth over the samples and pressing for 3 to 5 minutes with a dry iron on a wool setting. It is also reported that you can heat set the fabric by placing in a dryer set on high for 40 minutes. This sample was pressed for 4 minutes with an iron. Use a pressing cloth over the samples, apparently, I moved the pressing cloth to the end of the ironing board for this picture.

Throw the upper part of the samples in the washer, add old towels to provide movement for the fabric, wash and dry in normal cycles with detergent and softener if desired. Lay the washed sample next to the unwashed half to see which combination of materials and medium worked best for you. We obviously need to use enough medium to have the fabric retain the color. But fabric medium can make the fabric feel stiff like plastic. Aloe gel seems to spread the color easier and does not have the plastic feel. The GAC is quite thin and has a greater tendency to bleed. This may be a desirable quality on some projects, but not on the project that I am going to be working on. So I chose to use the Deco Art Medium spread with aloe for my project.

Embroider your design using white or black polyester thread. I chose polyester threads as it won’t absorb the ink as readily as rayon could. I’ve chosen an outline quilted in the hoop design for this sample. The reason that I have chosen a quilted in the hoop design is that the batting and stitching on the quilted block hold the fabric tautly enough so that you can unhoop it and have the block stay taut to be able to paint it. If you choose to do this on a single layer of fabric you can either iron freezer paper to the back of the material after embroidering and cutting away the stabilizer or tape the embroidery to a board to keep it taut while you are painting.

Pour a little fabric medium into a water color pallet. Dip your brush into the medium but swipe the brush on the pallet to remove excess medium. Then brush a small section with the fabric medium to wet the fabric, but do not oversaturate it.

Add a pencil to the coated area. You can draw around the section as I have done here as I want the center of the area to be lighter than the outside areas. Or you can just add color at the bottom of a section if you want to drag the color up lighter towards the top.

Pour a little aloe gel into a container. Note: you can add a tiny bit of water to the gel if it seems too thick to you. Dip a separate brush into the gel, wipe off excess on the side of the container, and start brushing it into the inked sections that you are coloring. Slide the color around until you get the desired results. Remember that water can make the colors bleed on fabrics so if you add water to the gel do so cautiously.

Fill in like sections following the steps 9 through 11. Dry those areas with a hand held hair dryer to prevent bleeding into the next color laid down. Even though staying in the lines is the goal, hand painted items most often have a little paint outside of the intended area. If you have a little mistake don’t worry about it, just carry on. If you try to remove the mistake with water it will only bleed more and create a larger mistake.

IMPORTANT: After completing the block let the fabric sit 24 hours to allow the fabric and ink meld. Then heat set your ink by ironing (use a pressing cloth over the block) for 3 to 5 minutes with an iron set on the wool setting or through into the clothes dryer set on high for 40 minutes.

Many different effects can be achieved with these techniques. The embroidery for this rose was stitched in white on fabric and batting. The whole rose was colored with just one Inktense Ink Pencil®. All of the shading was achieved by applying the ink to the innermost edge of the petal and dragged out with aloe gel on a brush to achieve the color gradient. Two colors of pencils were used to paint the stems and leaves and blended together with aloe gel.

The possibilities appear endless for combining your outline embroidery designs with Intense Ink Pencils® and each of your projects will be totally unique. I hope you enjoy this process as much as I do.