Paint makes an excellent addition to your embroidery! It gives your piece extra dimension, as well as allowing you to fill large areas without hours of needle and thread work! Just take a look at some of the photos in this article to see all the wonderful ways you can add paint to your embroidered works...
Fabric Paint
Fabric Paint is the obvious choice when it comes to shaking up your embroidery designs. And for good reason. It's literally made for this! It goes onto the fabric easily, and (once you follow the instructions) it'll stay on the fabric through wear and washing. However I find, particularly in Ireland, it can be difficult to get a good range of colours with most brands. That's why I suggest the next tip
Acrylic Paint (+ Textile Medium)
Acrylic Paint can be great on it's own as long as you're not wearing or washing the piece. And it can give you a much wider range of colours to choose from! However if you want your acrylic paint to be washable and wearable, you'll need to add a little something called Textile Medium. Adding this will have your acrylic paint acting like fabric paint, so you don't have to worry about making it last!
Watercolour
Watercolour can be a tricky one, but it does give some beautiful effects! Always test it on a scrap of your fabric first - some fabrics hold it beautifully, others just absorb the water and let it spread all over.
Because of the way watercolour paints mix on the fabric, you can get a really nice blended effect. But this also means that you must wait until one colour is completely dry before using the next if you want them to stay separate.
I strongly suggest getting out your watercolours and playing around with them on the fabric! It's the best way to get to know how they work.
I hope this has helped inspire some new ideas for you! I'd love to see how you add paint to your embroidery, so don't forget to tag me or send me your photos. And if you have any questions about the things mentioned above, please don't hesitate to ask!