Sponge Painting for a Needlepoint Design Background

It can happen with any canvas and this technique will work on any design a commercial hand-painted canvas needlepoint or your original design to make a lovely background that can then be stitched lightly.

After I finished tracing my Arts & Crafts Rose, I was thinking about how I wanted to stitch it and where it would go. Since roses come in all sorts of colors, I’ll be able to pick whatever shade I want for the focal point. We are planning a more integrated color scheme, based on watery blues- a beachy color. This pillow will go in a very Arts & Crafts room, s the design is perfect, but I want an open background, and white just won’t cut it.

Sponge Painting to the rescue, as you can see from the picture of the finished canvas, the color is great, mottled and with real depth. Once I have pattern darning over it, the changes will soften, but the design will retain its charm.

Materials

You will need: anatural sponge, either one big one or several smaller ones, 4 shades of acrylic paint, a plastic plate for mixing paints, paper towels, newspaper, file cards cut to mask portions of your design (optional)

Prepare the Work Area

1. Spread out the newspaper and put the canvas, paper towel, and needlepoint on it.

2. If you want to, tear the bigger sponge into smaller irregular pieces.

3. Cut out the file cards to mask over areas you don’t want to have painted. This is particularly important when you are using hand-painted canvas needlepoint you have bought or where another part of your design will have lighter stitching in another color.

The Paints

You will want three shades of one color, although one of these could be brighter or darker and an accent color.

You can either buy these shades, which can be hard to do or make them yourself. I made them because the aqua I bought was just too dark.

I added light gray for my main shade, dulling the color and lightening it slightly. A darker gray would have dulled it and darkened it.

For my second shade, I added white, lightening the color without dulling it.

The third shade had just two drops of black, darkening it. From bitter experience, add black VERY slowly; you need hardly any to get a dark color. Add too much black, and you get black, no matter how much color you add to it.

The accent color is a soft, medium light green, similar to the color I’ll be using for the leaves.

If you mix colors, swirl the colors together until they are thoroughly blended (you see no streaks of either color). Bamboo skewers work well for this as do swizzle sticks or plastic knives.

Try to make the colors fairly wide apart in shade; the sponge painting process tends to minimize differences.

Painting the Canvas

1. Put the masks onto the canvas. This is important because you want to stamp up to the edges of the design, but not onto it. If you try to “eye” this process, you might end up with a “halo” of white canvas around the design.

2. Dip your sponge lightly into the main color. You will have too much paint on the sponge, it needs to be practically dry. Press the sponge lightly on the paper towel to remove the paint. You will know you have removed enough paint when you start to see the holes of the sponge when you stamp.

4. Repeat this process with the second color, darker in my case. This color should be scattered more widely across the canvas.

5. Finally, scatter a few prints of the accent color across the canvas.

You can see the end result at the top of the article.

About Janet M Perry

Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family

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