Ohhh painting fabric can be difficult, but if you keep in mind the 3 S’s, it will make it easy:

SHAPE:

Painting fabric is a bit like painting an abstract picture full of abstract shapes, lines and textures.  We need to be very aware of the various shapes that the folds and shadows create.

Search out and record the shapes you see.

SHADOW:

The twists and turns of fabric create areas of highlight and areas of which are in shadow, which will make the fabric appear darker in some areas, and lighter in other areas.  The material itself does not change colour, but how the light bounces off the material makes it appear different. To begin, you want to pinpoint 3 different values of your fabric, ONLY 3 – DARK, MEDIUM & LIGHT.

That does not mean using black as your shadow…remember, the fabric does not change in colour but becomes a darker value….you need to make your paint a darker value. (If you need a hand with Values, check out this FREE Guide, The Power of Values)

SIMPLIFY:

So, we’ve already simplified the fabric into looking at it as an arrangement of SHAPES, recorded the SHADOWS by thinking in terms of values - light, medium and dark.

BUT on top of that, we’ve also to consider texture.

Texture can be overwhelming so you need to be selective and simplify what’s in front of you. The viewer will fill in the blanks, so try and reduce the information into as few marks as possible to convey the texture/pattern in front of you…use your artistic licence here!

As you can see, the two images are not carbon copies. Instead, I altered the tone of the jacket to suit the light blue background and selected a couple of marks to SUGGEST the texture/pattern of the suit.

You, as the artist have to make decisions of what to paint and what to leave out – to SIMPLIFY so as not to overload the viewer.

So, when you’re painting the fabric, remember to:

1. FIND SHAPES

2. RECORD SHADOWS – LIGHT, MEDIUM, DARK

3. SIMPLIFY THE TEXTURE/PATTERN.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on in the comments below!

Want to Delve Deeper?

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