Western painting in respect of female subject was dominated by portraiture until the middle of the 20th century due to the rise of fabric painters, and the function of fabric painting on clothes is no longer limited to the delivery of designer’s concept and ideas. Nowadays, the fabric painting on clothes is combined with business marketing, and such combination enables the fashion illustrators to portray the atmosphere about fashion and express their insight into the modern era through unique artistic expression. The notable fashion magazines, such as BAZAAR, ELLE, VOGUE, etc., also engage in creating beautiful fabric painting. The rendering and expression techniques of fabric painting on clothes and the materials are extensively applied, and among which water-based pigment has greater variability and plasticity. Painters exert their emotions and feeling to a great extent by controlling the water mixed into the pigment, which has a lot in common with Chinese ink and wash painting as both use water as their main medium. The author with Chinese ink and wash painting major background is able to fuse the elements of Chinese ink and wash painting into the expression of modern fabric paining on clothes. In this manner, the rendering implication and characteristics of Chinese ink and wash figure painting can be extended and transformed into the expression method for modern watercolor fabric painting on clothes.

The thesis concludes the following ten special expression techniques through the literature review and the analysis of the watercolor fabric painters’ works: “dip-pen single color rendering,” “dip-pen color rendering,” “color-field rendering,” “brush-pen color rendering,” “color block rendering,” “rubbing rendering,” “clip and paste,” “light-color painting,” “splash-color painting,” “splatter painting” and “water draining method”. An experimental study was conducted based on the above ten special expression techniques. The conclusion of the thesis expands the range and dimensions of the creative watercolor expression techniques which can be widely and flexibly used in the creation of fabric painting on clothes.