Silk Artists

One of the things I love about meeting other silk artists (do I dare call myself that) is that they totally LOVE painting on silk and they like to share techniques. I haven't taken any courses in silk painting, but I've taken a lot of art classes and I've learned by trial and error. So, it's fun to talk with other people who paint on silk and to find out that they also have learned via classes and by doing. Today, in Lake Geneva (WI, not the other one), I met Jeannine from Mystical Silks.

We chatted for a while about how to build a steamer and compared notes. One of the things I have the hardest time with is getting wrinkles out of the pieces. Jeannine said she just presses hers. WHAT??? That totally doesn't work for me. I think that it comes in the steaming. She built a stovepipe steamer (and now has several). Her first one cost her 17 cents to build! Isn't that great?! Anyway, I think it's time I try to do that. The advantage is that fewer wrinkles set in during the steaming process. One thing I have been doing already is to iron when the piece is still damp, that helps a lot, but this will probably help more.

It gets scary sometimes

Sometimes I find myself envisioning a project one way, but then it ends up as something else from what I had in mind. I call these my scary paintings-- or well, maybe just my scary moments. Here's one:

You can see some light blue flowers, leaves, and swirls. I had thought about using a blue resist and then painting in different shades of blue on a white background. Something summery. But, the colored resist didn't hold up too well and there were some small leaks. So, I soaked the silk a little while to wash out it out some more, and what you see is what was left after rinsing. I then decided to draw additional, similar designs right over what was already there to overlap and camouflage any mistakes.

Here's how it looked next:

Well, next I decided that the white background just wasn't going to work. There were still some small little breaks in the resist. So, I first wet the background to find any other weaknesses in the resist.

All in all, that's not so bad. I did tighten up the resist borders and then waited for this to dry. Then I put on the final background wash. I selected what I thought would be a dark color-- enough to cover any little "vacations." But, this is when it gets scary. If it breaks into a flower it's all over, it's not easy to get out all the dye if I'm not fast enough. I arm myself at this point with a handful of q-tips-- and some clear water.

Here it is with the wash on (the silk is still wet).

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And, here it is after it has dried.

Okay, maybe not so scary after all, but it IS different from what I thought. After steam setting I went back and highlighted with metallic blue and some purple, and silver too. Looks cool (but, I flaked on taking a pic at that point).

Really Steamed!

Okay, not really but I've been thinking about how to make this process more efficient. Here's one demonstration on how to build a steamer. This actually looks like something I could do. Probably, I'd have to set it up in the garage or backyard. Check out the blog too, there's an amazing series on painting a kimono.

I found another one the other day too, of course now I can't find it, so I'll post it when I do.

Steaming Silk

Someone asked me how I steam my scarves. I have to say that steaming is the necessary evil in the whole process as far as I'm concerned. I enjoy planning the piece, sketching out a design and then seeing it come to fruition. Often the design and especially the details change as I go along. Sometimes I find that colors are too similar when next to each other when I wanted them to be more different, so I make changes. Sometimes I'm find that a background works better darker or after an initial wash takes on swirls that look interesting and I keep it. Sometimes I make a mistake and have to cover it up with a flower-- leading to other flowers-- even a field of them!

I love how the scarves take on a deeper, richer color after steaming, some colors that seemed similar when I painted them on take on more unique characteristics on silk.

Hawaiian Inspiration

We went to Hawaii in the summer and it was totally relaxing. President Obama and his family are there now and I wish for them an equally relaxing time-- they need it I'm sure. Anyway, we're here in the San Francisco area where it's cold and rainy. So, I thought I'd think warm thoughts...

These are images from two different scarves. One is inspired by Sunset at Haleakala, the other by swimming in the ocean. These are painted on silk which measures 14 x 60 inches.