Painting Paradise
Kiss Me Deadly just love to do things a little differently, and this year we found a monochrome powermesh with a beautiful outline design of birds and flowers. We thought it offered a really fun way for us to give a few lucky customers the chance to own a truly unique Kiss Me Deadly garment. Enter the Paradise Longline Girdle:
A little known fact about Kiss Me Deadly is that our staff all hold qualifications that you probably wouldn’t associate with a vintage inspired lingerie brand. When we saw this particular powermesh, we felt that we just had to let Joe loose with it. Joe usually works in our warehouse, but he also has a degree in Fine Art, which made him ideally qualified to determine if it is indeed possible to turn the monochrome outlines of this girdle into a colourful work of art.
Here are Joe’s hints and tips for you all as you create your own unique Paradise girdle designs. When you buy the girdle from us, you can select a set of fabric paints to come with it, and we also include a brush. If you buy it from one of our retailers then you’ll have to arrange your own paints and brush; we used Leeho.
1) Use a paintbrush!
The fabric paints that we’ve chosen for this project come in handy little tubes with a pointed tip, so they can be used to apply paint directly to the fabric from the tube. However, Joe found that doing so gave him less control over the thickness of the paint than he would like:
Joe hates this picture! This is a magnified picture of the first bird that he painted, using the pearlescent version of the paints, directly from the tube. As you can see, even Joe’s skill couldn’t prevent the paint from becoming blotchy, or bleeding into the fabric around the beak.
So he decided to try using a small chisel-headed paintbrush, which he dampened a little to thin the paint slightly and make it easier to control.
Using the paintbrush, Joe could paint more details, and even found it possible to blend the various paint colours together to create new shades. Working with a damp brush will create a less vibrant colour effect, but we think that it’s much neater and more effective this way.
2) Only use a tiny bit of paint at a time.
You can always add more paint, but you can’t take it away once it’s on the girdle. So, squeeze a little from the tube onto a small plate or saucer, and don’t overload the brush, rather like painting your nails:
3) Paint inside the lines!
Wet paint can bleed, so if you paint right up to the lines you risk blurring the edges of your work. It can also bleed right through the fabric, so work with an absorbent cloth or tissue under the girdle. Make sure you check this frequently, and change it if necessary, because if it gets too saturated with paint you’ll end up printing the back of the girdle with it.
It’s also worth keeping another tissue close by. If the paint looks as though it may bleed into the surrounding fabric more than you would like, then blot your work gently with the spare tissue:
4) Apply light colours first.
Just like it’s easy to add more paint, but hard to take it away, it’s easy to make a pale colour darker, but hard to make a dark colour lighter. So start off with the lightest colour you think you’ll use, and work up to the dark ones.
5) Think about a background colour.
Joe didn’t paint a background colour for our sample girdle, but he thinks that it could really change the appearance, so he wants you all to think about it! The pattern includes leaves, flowers and birds, but there are background areas that aren’t any of those things. Remember that if you do use a colour for the background, that will limit the other places that you’ll be able to use it – you won’t be able to see a yellow flower on a yellow background very well, for instance.
6) Use shading and highlights to make your shapes stand out.
Admittedly this isn’t something that you have to do – Joe just likes doing it! But you can get all sorts of interesting effects by using a lighter colour as a highlight on an area of darker colour, or by using a darker colour to shade a lighter colour, like the red tips on this yellow flower:
You can also make an individual colour darker or lighter by changing the amount of water that you mix it with – using more water makes the colour lighter, like the leaves in the top right of the picture.
7) Give your paint time to dry.
When Joe was finished being creative, we allowed the paint to dry for a full day before this girdle was used in our photoshoot:
This is our new model, Emmie, wearing the girdle with the Van Doren bralet, Ayten Gasson Ouvert knickers, Gerbe stockings in rose, dagger photographers own. Shot in the 40 winks hotel, as ever by Iberian Black Arts.
8) If you need any advice, ask us!
Joe would love to feel like a genius, so if you have any questions, drop us an email and we’ll pander to his ego by getting him to answer! Email shop@kissmedeadly.co.uk.
9) Send us a picture!
We want to see what you come up with. Email info@kissmedeadly.co.uk with a picture of your girdle – especially if you are a photographic genius and can capture the glow in the dark paint! We’ll reward the best in 2013 with a £50 voucher and adulation.
