Handpainting Fabric
Easy, Elegant Techniques
By Michelle Newman and Margaret Allyson
With a Foreword by Kitty Bartholomew

     Arts and Craft Book Sings to the Soul

     I met Michelle Newman at a trade show and admired the scarf she was wearing. It turned out that she had painted it herself and it also happened that we both have books in publication. It was the beginning of a friendship. How can one not be attracted to someone with such creative energy? I knew her book, Handpainting Fabric: Easy, Elegant Techniques, would be a delight but was prepared to return it to her if we didn’t make a good reviewer/author match.

      I needn’t have considered the latter. Michelle, the artist, and Margaret Allyson, the writer, have assembled a how-to book that not only gives a person the technical knowledge to paint fabric but is also long on inspiration—the kind that taps the very marrow of your artistic bones.

      One thinks of scarves when considering hand painted textiles but here is an art that will allow you to create a floating organza skirt for your next cruise, a purse fairy-painted with all the metallic colors of the mineral world so it will go with everything, a lush pillow for your couch or original bedspread of velvet.

      While the pictures will motivate you to try your hand at this craft, the text will assure you that you will be successful. It covers simple sources of inspiration like The Coloring Book Method and using doodles or comic books as a basis for design. It addresses simple techniques like stamping and stenciling. Check out the lovely oriental design on page 49—simple enough for a preschooler. In fact, school teachers might find much in this book to inspire classroom projects for many years.

     Handpainting will also stimulate your imagination and longing to try more advanced work with it’s segments on Shortcut Shibori, Fortuny Pleating, Layering and Collage. Once a reader has mastered Michelle’s basic lessons, it seems easy enough to follow the directions for these more complex procedures.

     I should add that Allyson’s writing is creative and holds up well against the magic of this art as do the photographs credited, at least in part, to Michael Katz and Kim Meyer of Jacquard Products.