Oatmeal on Cloth

Last week I created some samples of cloth using oatmeal resist for a demo I'll be doing later this year.  I've done a lot of work with oatmeal, but I wanted to have a complete set of samples showing how altering the variables affects the cloth.  After creating these samples, I have a renewed enthusiasm for oatmeal. 

I started working with oatmeal as a resist about 5 years ago.  It's a little more involved than flour paste, but it creates a very distinctive pattern.  It is also very versatile.  You can achieve vastly different patterns depending on the ratio of water to oatmeal, whether you let the oatmeal dry or not before handpainting and whether you handpaint or immerse.  Below are photos of a few of my samples.

Oatmeal on silk

Hand painted while the oatmeal was still damp

Oatmeal applied with a spoon.  Looks kind of like popcorn, doesn't it?

Immersed instead of hand painted.  If you look closely you can see the paw prints where my cat

jumped up and did "the slide".