Urban Doodles with Lorine Mason

This is my last post about the classes and workshops I took at the Bella Crafts Connections event at the Mall of America.  One of the classes I took was called Urban Doodles, and when I signed up for it I had no idea how fun it was going to turn out being!  It was taught by Lorine Mason and she actually just posted something on her blog about the class . . . check it out by clicking HERE.

First off, what is Urban Doodles?  It is making some basic shapes on a surface and then filling the spaces of those shapes in with patterns and colors.  You can fill in as little or as much as you would like.  Patterns can be anything.  There are no rules.

Here are some examples that Lorine brought with her to the class.

I loved how the colors were blended on this sample!

For our class Lorine wanted us to make a finished project.  If we just worked on a piece of fabric then we could take it home and make it into something . . . a pillow, a wall hanging . . . whatever we wanted . . . but she was thinking ahead and thought about how people bring projects home and say "I am going to do something with that" and then never do, so to avoid that Lorine sewed some fabric composition book covers for all of us to use for this project.  Now we could just take it home and put it on a book.  (Great idea!)

To start, fan fold the fabric and then put rubber bands on it in a few spots.

Next, take spray fabric paint and spray the fabric.  If you want to use multiple colors you can do that also.  

You can go heavier in some spots and lighter in others.  I just did a light mist since I wanted more space for the shapes and doodles.

Now, you would let that dry overnight, but to speed things up we used a blow dryer and then ironed the fabric to set the die.  Here is what mine looked like.

Now time to add the shapes.  We used templates that Lorine brought with, but you can use any shape you want.  I might want to try this idea again and do a Hidden Mickey in the pattern.  First we traced around the templates with pencil so that we could figure out the placement and adjust things we wanted to.  Then we came in with a black fabric marker to darken the outlines  . . . then came the part I personally was nervous about . . . the doodles and painting!  What if I messed up!

This is where having a great teacher like Lorine really helped.  She showed me that there are no mistakes, and that you cannot screw this up . . . it might not look like what you had planned, but you can allow it to become an opportunity to try something new.  She even showed me some spots on one of her display pieces that she said when the colors first started to bleed together she thought the whole piece was ruined.  She walked away from the project, and when she came back later she looked again and realized that the end result was something beautiful that she had not expected and she actually ended up repeating that technique in other areas on the same piece.  

Here are some close ups of my finished piece.

This is the back cover.  I did this little cluster of circles to hide a spot where I must have had ink on my hand and there was a weird splotch on the fabric.  Bet you cannot even SEE the thing that I first thought was a "mistake".  (see . . . I told you Lorine is a good teacher)

And this is the finished project.  I put it on the composition book that I always have on my craft room work surface.  I use this book to sketch out ideas or when that random thought comes through my head and I think "I don't want to forget that".

If you want to learn more about Lorine Mason and her classes on Urban Doodles, I have provide links where you can find her below.  Tell her Shawn sent you!

Happy Doodling

Lorine Mason Website // Blog // Facebook // Pinterest // Twitter 


#BellaCon15