Dying White Muslin for Background

[Mike Jordan]

I have a large piece of white muslin that I would like to dye to use
as a background. Since I don't want to come out with a big mess, I
thought I'd ask how others have created their dyed backgrounds.
Since I'm partial to earth tones, I thought I would try to get
something that has different shades of those colors. Any
suggestions on dying?

Thanks

Mike

--
Hillsboro, Oregon
Bouvier des Flandres - Herding & Working Dogs
http://www.europa.com/~mjordan - Pictures & Info on Bouviers

[Kirk]

In article <3A7D9FA0...@europa.com>, mjo...@europa.com says...

> I have a large piece of white muslin that I would like to dye to use
> as a background. Since I don't want to come out with a big mess, I
> thought I'd ask how others have created their dyed backgrounds.
> Since I'm partial to earth tones, I thought I would try to get
> something that has different shades of those colors. Any
> suggestions on dying?
>

Try to get a pure cotton muslim if at all possible already dyed in the
base light tone that you want, then apply a darker tone by a variety
of methods.

--
Kirk

Experience is the best teacher...
But her pop quizzes can be mighty tough.

[David Grabowski]

On Sun, 04 Feb 2001 10:29:53 -0800, Mike Jordan <mjo...@europa.com>
wrote:

>I have a large piece of white muslin that I would like to dye to use
>as a background. Since I don't want to come out with a big mess, I
>thought I'd ask how others have created their dyed backgrounds.
>Since I'm partial to earth tones, I thought I would try to get
>something that has different shades of those colors. Any
>suggestions on dying?
>
>
>Thanks

I know to change your base tone you just need to Ritz dye the entire
piece in a dub of water with the dye in it. To add other tones people
splash , use paint brushes or soak and crumple up the material. I
havn't done this personally but they also thin out latex paint to a
watery consistancy and paint or splash that on , even make water color
scenes.

Someone is bound to chime in here with more exact info.

David Grabowski

[Mike Jordan]

Hi David,

David Grabowski wrote:

> I know to change your base tone you just need to Ritz dye the entire
> piece in a dub of water with the dye in it. To add other tones people
> splash , use paint brushes or soak and crumple up the material. I
> havn't done this personally but they also thin out latex paint to a
> watery consistancy and paint or splash that on , even make water color
> scenes.
>

This is basicly what someone suggested by e-mail. I would think the
material was too thin to paint on, but it might work if I could stretch
it out enough. Spray paint may be better than trying to brush it on. I
think I'll try out some patterns on pieces of my seamless background paper
first. Since a roll of 9 foot by 12 yards is pretty cheap, I can pratice
on a number of pieces before I tackle painting the cloth.

[Eric Scott]

You are getting some bad information. All you need to do to paint muslin is
this.

I have done quite a few of these.

Take the muslin and lay it out. Get some gray paint. This the paint to five
parts water to one part paint. Cover the entire piece of fabric. This is
called sizing the background.

You can do this flat on the ground or nailed to a stretcher frame. I have
two 20' X 30' backgrounds done like this.

After the paint has dried you can paint it just as you would anything else.
I suggest you keep the paint watered down fairly good to help blend all the
colors.

People used to tell me all the time you can not paint muslin with house
paint. Today I just tell them Bullshit.

Eric