Ways to personalize plain linen drawstring bags into custom linen bags

Today we’d like to share one more acrylic paint art experience we’ve had on natural linen. For painting on linen fabric this time we chose our drawstring bag in color Natural from Lesna collection.

One bird brought us some inspiration on its tail...

Painting on raw linen: some recommendations

A comfortable place to work, convenient lighting and some good mood will certainly help you in trying your hand at painting on linen - take care of yourself and the atmosphere.

When choosing anything made of natural linen for painting on, we must understand that raw, unprimed linen differs in coarse and porous surface from the smooth gesso-primed canvas on a frame. Such“naked” linen will absorb more paint, but will leave the fabric flexible and bendable, while primer would make linen into a monolith.

It needs to be said that it is quite difficult to paint a clear line on linen. Therefore, where appropriate, you can apply stencils, as we did in our previous article. There you will find more tips and a list of canvas painting supplies for beginners necessary to start your project.

Pros and cons of painting on fabric with acrylic paint

Acrylic is for those practical at heart. It is not expensive and is easy to use. Acrylic linen fabric paint can be used directly from its tube or it can be diluted with water - this is the salvation for those who are allergic to sharp-smelling oil paint thinners.

The greatest convenience of acrylic is that if you are unhappy with some area that you’ve painted, you can let it dry and paint right over it. In case with fabric painting, this is a win - the paint layer will turn out denser and brighter.

As far as cons, it should be noted that over time, the layer of acrylic can crack. But most often this happens with items made of non-natural fabrics which hold a large percentage of elastane or spandex. Such items naturally stretch, stretching the acrylic painting along with them.

Caring for hand painted linen fabric items

Once the painting is complete and is fully dried, it usually is heat-set. This is normally done with not too hot of an iron - iron the “wrong” side lightly for 3-5 minutes. Normally a scrap fabric is used to protect the iron and (or) the ironing board.

Caring for hand painted linen is not difficult - it can be machine washed at 40° C. Due to its “rubber” structure, acrylic is not washed off the fabric, especially if it is a thick layer.

Take a look at our trial acrylic painting.

This sample was machine washed at 40° C. Note that where sharp contours were drawn, there are no changes - the line is solid. And where acrylic was applied lightly, where we wanted to create a kind of a soft filling, there is a gap through which you can see the linen texture, which we all love so much. Acrylic can be applied in different ways, and washing will reveal that.

Now let's move on to painting.

Here we present a simple design for a rather small acrylic painting of a birdie bird.

Let's outline our bird.

It can be funny-looking and a little cartoonish.

Now we’ll color it in using mainly one brownish color, slightly darker on the right side - this will create volume. Paint the tail with a darker color to show the shadow.

Mix the same color with blue and add extra volume to the head and body of the bird.

Paint the beak and legs, draw the eye. And give that bird a little smile : )

Paint a rope for the bird to sit on.

…and a few friends for the company.

It should be said that painting on the textured surface of linen is very pleasant. If you’ve painted on paper before, you will experience some very unusual new sensations from work. It is worth a try.

Let your imagination take off and paint your unique bird.