15 Kinusaiga Tips & Tricks Every Artist Should Know - Ocean Fabric Art Tutorial

Hello, I'm Crafty Patty, and as you can see, I can't stop doing this Japanese art form. I'm just loving it. Beautiful way to show some fabric in a painting using scraps. I already published this Kinoseka painting for you with lots of instruction. I also published a video on the different types of foam board you can use because I found it very confusing for me, so I did a whole video on this as well as some framing techniques. I'm gonna leave these two videos, the links to those is easy for you to find in the description box below this video. Now, I am starting a series. I'll probably do three of them, each series. The first one I'm doing for you today is starfish. Now, in this video, I'm gonna be showing you how I do this design, but the important thing is I'm gonna be showing you over 15 tips and tricks on things that can come up with your Kinoseka artwork, and you're thinking, well, how am I gonna get around that? Chances are I've covered it in this video. So if you've got the time and you can watch through the whole 30 minutes, it's gonna be well worth it, believe me. It's gonna make your Kinoseka artwork be a little more polished and easier, and you won't have any problems. So come along to the beach with me, and let's make this. So now I get to use the frame and my XPS board that I showed you how to do in the last video. If you haven't watched that video yet, this is basically a display frame, or you can call it a shadowbox frame, and then inside, I measured it so I had enough room to put my backing on. I used a little piece of foam board from the dollar store, and I've got my XPS 1 1⁄2 inch in here, and that's what we're gonna use to make our design. I'll be using the 3M double-sided tape sheets to apply to my foam board. So I'll just turn it over on the paper side, and I will just draw around this with a pencil so we've got the same size, so we don't need to waste anything. I'll just cut out my paper here. You can use scissors if you choose to. It doesn't have to be a rotary cutter. I just prefer it to scissors. And don't worry, this isn't wasted. You can always cut it down and put two pieces together to make your second one. And now grabbing one of your corners, you're gonna peel this back. So you've just taken off your paper backing, and the sticky portion is still stuck to the 3M here. So let's just take off a portion of it. It's very sticky, and that's just easier to get it to line up without sticking the whole thing down. And then once you've gotten a little bit down, then you can just take the rest off. And I didn't get it on perfectly, but it doesn't need to be perfect. That's good enough. Again, I asked CHAP GPT to design me a ocean theme with three starfish, is what I specified, with boulders around it, and making the starfish look like they were realistic, meaning that they had bends and stuff in them like they would on a beach. So this is what it came up with. The next step was to enlarge this a little more. So it is fitting on my eight by eight inch square frame. Here's the enlargement. So as you can see, what I've done here is I've divided up the rocks more so that I can put different shadings of grays or browns, whatever color I want in my rocks. Same for the rocks here. I also divided up my starfish. So here's the original starfish. And what I'm going to do is I've just drawn lines so I can make cuts. So each one of these will be a different fabric. Now, obviously, I'm not going to try to put all this pebbles in here. I'm gonna just make this all blue, a watercolor blue, okay? So that's the idea of what you do. And in here, this water piece needs to get broken up somewhere. You come off the starfish, go up in here, and this can be a piece right here. Let's break it here. That's one piece. Here's another piece here. We'll break it there. Now, keep in mind, depending on the frame you're using, that you're gonna lose a little bit of your design, about a quarter inch, that that frame is gonna come over into your design. I absolutely love this fabric. So I'm gonna try to incorporate one of these shells right in here. So I'm not gonna actually cut that right now, but I'm gonna leave that for later, and I'll show you how we do that to add this. Now, I probably won't have the whole big shell because that big shell is out of proportion to these starfish. So I'll probably just have the tip of it coming off the page. So I'm just gonna cut down my design here so I can see where I'm at using my paper cutter. And now it's just a matter of keeping on your pattern onto your 3M double-sided tape and your foam board. And I'm just gonna place the tape where I don't have any lines I'm gonna be cutting into. Make sure you have a copy of this design so you can refer to it after you're cutting. So when you're down into the 3M double-sided tape, you can refer back to this to see more clearly where your design is. All right, so now we're ready to cut out our design. So I'll just start up in here. And it's just a matter of cutting into the board so the tip of your X-ACTO knife goes down into the foam board because that's what we're gonna be using to have that fabric go into the foam board to make our design. So follow along your pattern as best you can. And then you're gonna cut out all of these pieces. Now, this is a more intermediate design. And the more you have curves, the little bit harder it is. If you have all straight lines, then that's easier. Depends on what kind of a design you want. But I like it fancy. So that's what I'm gonna do. Now, you can see how this paper's lifting because the double-sided tape is underneath this area, which is what we're going to keep. So hold on to those pieces while you're still cutting it out so they're not lost in your design. We'll grab this one first. Place this one back in place. It's okay if it comes out. And now let's finish this one. I've got one more piece here. Let's put that one back. And I've got this little line here to do. So that section there is done. So starting from the outside is a good plan because we're taking this piece here. You take out all this piece, then all that's gonna be coming out, and you want to have these three pieces. So let's take this one, and we'll cut that one out. And turn your board, or just turn your exacto knife, whatever's easiest for you. Cut out your shapes. And I wouldn't try to get each shape exact as your original, because your exacto knife is a little bit trickier to cut with than using a pencil to make those lines. So as long as you're pretty close, then that's all that counts. There's your next piece, right? So I think you got the idea. I'll take this one next. And once you've cut out all your pieces, you're ready for the next fun part. We've got our guide here to help us along. So remember I was talking about this one shell that was on the beach. I kind of liked that little accent, and I had the fabric. So I've cut it down, and I'm only gonna use maybe half of it. To get that on there now, I'm just gonna use a little bit of tracing paper to trace out that shell, so I know where I'm cutting. So now that I've traced it out, I can decide where to put it in my design. And now the beauty of this 3M is that underneath here, we've got that sticky backing, and it will hold our fabric piece in place. So this time we just have to try to make sure that we can place it as best we can over my little design here. And let's see how I did. Just lifting it up here and there to see if I'm going in the right direction, because it is a very intricate little piece with lots of little curvies and bumpies. I think what my point is, is that you can pretty much do anything you want for your designs. And if you've got a piece of fabric like this that you want to incorporate, and I'm not gonna worry too much about this corner here, because when I put in the water, it will also tuck in the fabric along the same edge as the shell. And while I've got this fabric out, let's do that little shell as well. Let's take this out, so I can use it as a guide this time, because this little shell is much smaller than my piece of fabric. So let's pop that on there where we want it. And we'll just cut that fabric a little bit smaller. Again, on these more intricate pieces, you wanna just lift it up so you can see where you've cut your design. And then down in here, I've got a few little squiggly marks, so it's just a little bit more. Like I said, this is more of an intermediate. We're not working with straight lines all the time. If you've got too much fabric to work with, then come in and cut some off, and there we go. Now we've got a little shell on our beach. So now what I'm gonna do, I think I will come in and I'm gonna do just a plain blue in here for the water, because what I like to do is try to have a solid color and a pattern beside each other, rather than a pattern in a pattern, because it takes away from the actual accent. And I want the starfish to be the highlight of this. I'm gonna take this whole piece out, use it as my guide. I'm just gonna do a rough cut here for starters. And I don't like the frayed edges because I find that it's hard to tuck that into the little grooves. So I take those selvedges or the frayed edges off. Then anytime that there's a little bit of an indent, I'm gonna make sure I cut into those indents so it's easier to tuck in the fabric. So let's make sure we come into that spot there, and then come right up into that corner there, right in here. And we can adjust that again when we put it on, making sure that we've got it all covered. And when you get a little tight area like this, just come in and cut into that corner a little bit, so it's easier to get the fabric in. Again, this is a little corner here, so just come in with your scissors and cut up into the corner, taking out any excess fabric you don't need. I've got a corner here, so I wanna make sure my fabric comes into that corner. So I'm gonna come this way with my seam ripper and make sure I get into that corner, because if you pull it the other way, you're gonna take your fabric away from the corner. And with this one here, I've got a corner here, so I'm gonna pull it up so I get the fabric into the corner. Got another little tight spot, cut into that, so the fabric will go in. Here's some little tricks to make it easier for you. So we've got a corner on this side, and we've also got a corner here. So once you've got that corner done, then do the same thing on this side. Work it up towards the corner so you don't have it so there's no fabric there. And I've got a point here, so I wanna come this way. And you can cut off your excess, because this is gonna be hidden in the frame, and you know all your tips and tricks on corners and how to do different accents that you haven't originally put into your original design. And so I'm gonna go through, and I'm gonna add all the water, and that will really help define where my pattern is. Here's another thing you can do to make it easier for you. I'm working on a real intricate piece right now. So what I'll do is I'm gonna place my piece right in here, right where it should be, and then I know exactly where I'm going. So if I follow along my line, I should hit my exact knife line that I made previously. You've got your piece in place. What I'm gonna do is just like sewing, I'm gonna come in and make little notches like this, just like you would in sewing. You're going around a curve, and that will help to also be able to lift it up, make sure you're doing it right, and that will help. So now I can come back in, making sure I'm going in the right direction, a little bit of a curve down in here, that's down, and then back out again, because I'm following the line of this. So let's come back up here, making sure it's in placement, and I can even look underneath if I want to, but this guide is telling me exactly where I need to go. Same up here, take it out, hold a new piece in place, and I know it should be right here. I've got this little tiny bit that comes up, so holding your pattern piece in there really helps to know where you're going. Now I've got this piece in here to get into, so I'm gonna come in, cut right down the middle. Again, using my pattern piece, find where my edges are and where it's going in, and once you've got your general idea, you can take your pattern piece off and find two. This one here is coming in that little tiny bit more, and you can see that it's still too tight, so we're gonna come in, snip into that corner again, and a little bit more. If you've got any bulkiness in a corner, you can take out some bulkiness before you try to get that in. And now we've got that really intricate little section going in because we used our little piece to know exactly where we were going. So I can finish this off now that I've showed you my little tips and tricks. Always going into the corner. Otherwise, you're gonna have holes. And again, I don't remember where I'm going here. Now I do, so that can come out because I'm not going that far. Let's take that off. And this part here is gonna be covered by the frame. So I'm not too concerned with that. That one can finish it off just on the point there. All right. I hope that helps you to get around some tricky, intricate pieces. The other thing you can look out for when you're creating your fabric art is looking where you might have shadows. So with this big rock here, if the sun's coming from this way, you'd probably have a darker piece of blue in here. So that's what I've done here. I've made this a little bit darker than these pieces here. And if I've got any fabric, I can try to manipulate it a little bit, try to get the shadows, the darker blue here and the lighter blue in the center, then that's what I'm trying to do. Not that you just, when you're working with certain pieces of fabric, but that's the idea. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. All my water is in. And now for my next plan, I grabbed my paper, shaded in some colors just to get a reference of where I might want to go with my next colors. So I'm thinking it might be kind of fun. I've got this fabric here and maybe that might look kind of like mossy kind of seaweed. So I might put that on the bottoms here. And then I've got some rocks so I'm going to maybe make beiges and browns. And then the other ones I'll make grays and blacks. I cut a little bit of this green for the bottom. And I was cutting this fabric and I thought it would look more like seaweed if I cut it up and down. That still would look good. Or then I thought, changed my mind. I thought maybe it's better if I stay this way with the rock. So I'm going to try that. Here's my green in there. And I grabbed a piece of the elephant here for on here and see how that works. I'm laughing because it almost looks like a fish or a whale. It happens to be that this part right here almost looks like an eye. So I liked my original idea better, how I colored it in with some brown rocks. And I was going to make this one brown. And even though it's kind of a funky fish, I'm not liking it. So this is the other thing I want to teach you. If you do something you don't like it, can you take it out? You sure can. So just take it from the side or wherever you can get into it and just rip it out just like that. You won't have as much sticky stuff on there but you've got enough to add another piece of fabric. And I'm going to come back in with the same brown over here and see if I like that better. And there's the brown rock instead of the black rock. And I realized I made a mistake. I wanted my rock to come up further and I made it all blue. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to come in with my seam ripper and I'm going to get in here and rip the fabric. I'm just pulling this out here. Cut that off. Just seeing how far back I have to go. Right to there. Now, on this side, it's to there. Okay. And let's fix that one. So I'm kind of glad I did that because then you could see that it's possible to change it, to fix it, to improve it, or whatever you feel is necessary at the time. So let's just get working this in and then we will do our brown rock as intended. Here's another thing. I don't like how I originally designed this and cut it here. I want this to be all one piece of fabric. So that's what I'm going to do. I'll take off this piece. Pop it right here on my brown fabric and take off that piece. Let's pop it right beside that one so I can cut up my design and I'll just make sure I've got enough fabric to go over that whole area. Pop it right over both of them and nobody will know the difference except me and you. And I'm just making sure that I go around both pieces together and not put that line in the middle. And as I would say in the old days, Bob's your uncle. I was going to stop and work on this tomorrow but I can't stop. You'll find out. It's really addictive. You just can't stop. You just got to keep going because it's so fun. So I might just do my green seaweed and try to stop after that. Okay. I'm stopping. I'll see you tomorrow. And I've now finished my starfish and I'm very happy how that turned out. And here's a couple more tips and tricks for you. Sometimes you'll get these little tiny pieces of fabric that have come up, the little tiny frayed ends. And I like to use just like a fabric brush, you know, little sticky rollers and just go over it. And that will pick up all those little pieces that you can't see or missed. And that's ready to go. And I got one more for you. Now you'd probably never see it at a distance but I know it's there. And I got too close on my fabric right here. And it's just starting to come up on the edge here. So I'm going to fix that. I'm going to put a small amount of Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue on a toothpick. And I'm going to go into that little tiny portion there and just hold it down. And then I will be a happy camper. Just going to pop it down in there and hold down those few little frayed pieces. That will help to tidy it up. Look at that. Nice and tidy. Can't even see it's there now. Just another little tip for you. All right, there we go. And now that it's all finished, I'm going to be putting it in this 8x8 display frame. And I showed you how to do this in my previous video. Again, I'll have a link to that video. I've taken out the glass. Now you could leave the glass in if you wanted to protect it a bit more but I'm leaving it out. So we're just going to pop that right into our frame. And I talked about the foam board from the dollar store in my last video. I'm putting that in just to bring it up a little bit. So when I pop on my backing, it goes in perfectly. And then I can just push down my little tabs and we are framed and ready to go. There we have it. Isn't it beautiful when it's framed? It just finishes it off just beautifully. I love it. Wow, that was a packed full video of lots of tips and tricks for you. Now, if there's something that I didn't cover out of all of that, let me know in the comments and I'll see if I can address it in the next video. Because you know, I'm going to be making another one of these because I'm addicted and I can't stop. So make sure you turn on your notification bell so you don't miss that next video. Till then, you know what I'm going to be up to. I'm going to be doing some more artwork. Bye bye for now.