Hello Artists! Anjali here from “The Letters of an Architect” back with another project for the month of July. I have chosen to do something completely different from my usual work this time. I’ve also chosen Acrylic medium to paint the Tote Bag, instead of my regular watercolors. The PPS DT kit this time included a wide array of interesting materials including cotton tote bags, acrylic paint bottles, some gorgeous Princeton brushes, sharpie brush pen, and markers, all of which I have put to good use in this project.
Here is the list of supplies I used for this project:
WEAR’M Medium Tote 13.5″X13.5″X2″-White
Sakura of America Pen-Touch Paint Marker Extra Fine Point .7mm-Gold Metallic
Deco Art Americana Acrylic Paint 2oz-Salem Blue – Opaque
Deco Art Americana Acrylic Paint 2oz-Lemon Yellow – Semi-Opaque
Deco Art Americana Acrylic Paint 2oz-White Peach
Deco Art Americana Acrylic Paint 2oz-Yellow Ochre – Opaque
Prima Marketing Art Alchemy Sparks – Dragon’s Eye Acrylic Paint
Deco Art Desert Turquoise-Americana Paint 2 oz
Deco Art Snow White-Americana Paint 2 oz
Princeton Artist Round 12 -Select Brush
Supplies which came in my DT kit for July and August
Now, onto the process;
Step 1: Unfold the tote bag and iron it, to remove any creases and to make the painting process smoother.
Step 2: Tape the bag to your work surface using masking tape or 3M Blue Artist’s tape, leaving a white border.
Step 3: Draw or sketch a light outline of your design on the cloth. Preferably with a hard pencil, like HB, or 2H. The theme for July being Summer, I chose to paint bright yellow sunflowers with large green leaves. I also sketched in a summer quote which I later changed my mind about
Step 4: Start painting the flowers. First apply a coat of paint using your size 12 brush, then use the smaller brushes to fill in details. I re-applied the paint once again after the first coat dried, for a better look.
Tip: Acrylic paints are just like watercolors except they are more opaque and dry up very quickly. So rewet your paints and brushes every now and then and wash your brushes as soon as you’re done painting.
Step 5: Add the background color. I used the White Peach shade since I wanted it to look light and summery. Again, I used the size 12 brush first, then later covered the small gaps using size 1 brush.
Step 6: Add some golden embellishments using the Gold Acrylic paint.
Step 7: Wait until dry then peel off the tape. Voila! Your beautiful tote bag is ready to fill your art supplies with on-the-go. I decided to gift this bag to my niece so I wanted to customize it with her name. So there are 3 more steps to finish.
Step 8: Draw a pencil outline of the name.
Step 9: Now, letter it using the Sharpie Brush pen. You can also write the name using a normal Sharpie marker using Faux Calligraphy.
Step 10: Then outline the name using the Metallic Gold marker so that it stands out and that’s it!
If you enjoyed reading this process and would like to try it out yourself, share the pictures and do tag us @ppsuae and @thelettersofanarchitect on Instagram and use the hashtags #madewithppsuae and #myppsorder.
Until next time, Happy Creating!
