Lady Butterfly Collaboration

I was recently invited by Polish fashion designer, Katarzyna Byler also known as Kaybi, to collaborate on a project. She asked me to hanpaint a 3 metre long piece of fabric. Who knew it would turn out be an amazingly beautiful fashion set!

I started with a sketch of what I wanted the colours and patterns to be like. The sketch isn't great, but I had a vision.

I started painting, by first adding a layer of water on top of the material, and then added watered down acrylic paints in shades of pink and purple. I then added stronger colours, and blues, also I used spray paints to further strengthen the contrast.

My cat, Freya, accompanied me during the process. As you can see, I was joking about the scale of this fabric. It took over three quarters of my living room.

This is what the fabric looked like before drying ...

And after drying. The colours changed, so naturally, I had to add an extra layer of paint, but also bear in mind not to add too much, to prevent the fabric from becoming stiff. I also added extra patterns and lines with acrylic markers.

Despite painting on fabric for the first time using this technique, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

After preparing the material and delivering to Kaybi, she sew a beautiful top and skirt, which resemble a dress. The lady, who was modelling, was Anna Moskwa. Kaybi asked her followers to give a name to the top and skirt. It was named "Lady Buttterfly".

And here are the videos during which the top and skirt were sold at a charity auction dedicated to SOS Wioski Dziecięce. It was sold for 5000 PLN, which is an impressive amount for clothing.

I am extremely honoured that I had a chance to participate in this amazing collaboration and hopefully I'll have a chance to paint more textile art for fashion designers.

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