Name: Rae

Message: Do fabric paints need to be water-based transparent in order to do sun-printing?  I have some oil-based paints.  Will they work?

No, I don't think they will work. The reason why the water-based paints create patterns in sunprinting is that the sunlit regions dry faster and pull out the paint that is still wet from under the stencils. Oil paints do not dry in the same way as water-based paints, and I suspect they don't get pulled along the cellulose fibers in the same way. 

I may be wrong, though. Try just a small piece of scrap fabric as a test. Stretch it across an embroidery hoop if you have one handy, and just paint a small area in the middle. If it works, please let me know. Don't do this with oil paints that are not marketed as fabric paints, because the oils and pigments may degrade the fabric.

The paints I recommend for sunprinting are thin, transparent water-based acrylic fabric paints, such as SetaColor, Dye-Na-Flow, or the transparent colors of PROfab Textile Paints. You can buy these fabric paints from some good crafts stores, or you can mail-order them from sources such as Blick Art Materials, Dharma Trading Company, or PRO Chemical & Dye. For more information on the different ways you can do sunprinting, see the page "How to Dye and Paint Fabric with Light".

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