More Painterly I say!

paintedress.jpg

Why I have Diana Ross-esque big poofy hair will be explained in the next post but for now I just wanted to share with you a bit of advice from my dear GCSE art teacher (whose name has slipped off me…. any Henrietta Barnett girls circa 1995-2000 remember?!) who kept on urging me to be more ‘Painterly’.  I never excelled in precise realistic paintwork but instead I went mental with the paintbrush and just kept on dabbing thick blobs on the paper hoping it would resemble something good by the end of it (even back then, the concept of ‘less is more’ was lost on me….). 

Anyway, the advice wasn’t forgotten when I bought another white dress from The East End Thrift Store yesterday and lopped off a unnecessary ruffle at the bottom and just went drybrush mad with some blue, pink and purple fabric paint.  Of course, smudges happened and the sink has a bit of a purple tinge going on at the moment but with the right tights, the dress is not looking a complete wreck…

Still me thinks I need to get back to HBS to practise the ‘painterly’ techniques but also procuring more blank canvas dresses will be key too…   

Paintedress

28 comments

  1. Oh, I love it! It’s like the Teen Vogue spread on DIY dresses…but I like yours better. the last combo is my favorite.

  4. i love the big smudges and lines, i was trying to think of a way to get round doing paint splashes without wrecking my walls but the dabbed paint looks super effective!

  7. Susie baby it’s Christine here – hmm try Mrs Spiers or Mr Woolf? I’m sure they’d be hella proud..
    Love you lots x

  8. The romanticism of your dress is so apt for the SS08 season!
    It’s very style forward sans being a little too much on the eye.

  10. That’s a cool pattern you did on the dress with the paint. I like the way you combined it with the jackets.

  13. seriously, your hair looks really cool like this. its not really 100% diana ross so its not all bad.
    i dont know if you watched the old sitcom friends but there was an episode where monica’s hair turns into crazy diana ross ball of fluff. now that was funny.

  15. a dreamer: Yes, that image did crop up when I came home to the boyf…
    I do like having curly hair though crimping is a little bit of a mission for me…. I have kept it in for today but it’s gonna be a bitch to wash out…
    Christine: Mrs Spiers – yes! You’ve got it…I was having a mental relapse….
    How’s things?!

  16. I just realised…your hair gone poofy, looks weirdly like mine in its normal state! But on you it looks fantastic (I normally look like a yeti).

  19. I’ve def been wanting to try this since the teen vogue article and yours came out great!! Better than Jason Wus if i dare say!!
    ~Danielle

  20. So cool! I really love the painterly painting at the bottom of the plain white dress! Beautiful! And I like the big hair 😀

  23. Thanks guys… I did take some notes from the TV Jason Wu thingy…but alas, mine isn’t as pristine looking….
    Emma: The tights are from Tightsplease.com

  24. Wow, I love what you’ve done with your dress. You’ve inspired me!
    What are your paints and where did you get them?

  26. I love it – it looks vaguely floral, but not too much so. More of walk in the garden than in-your-face florals. please, please visit the blog.

  28. lovin ure style. first time on this website and thinkin i may be returning, love ure variety of colours of tights, i often get mine from tightsplease.co.uk do u get ures from here? XX

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