fine arts, weaving and fibres
Kathleen Stuart - Artist
  • Home
    • Blog
  • Gallery I - For Sale
  • Gallery II - Sold
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

My Silk Painting in Places Near and Far

10/20/2015

6 Comments

 
 I've had a lot of interest and questions about my silk painting in the Terrace Art Gallery show so thought I could share the making of this piece on-line. Blue Morpho, Poison Dart Frogs and the Resplendant Quetzal began life as several watercolour paintings but I couldn't capture the iridescent colours as I saw them in Costa Rica. I had just purchased a sampler set of water-based G&S Liquid Colours after watching silk artist Jean Batiste videos so decided to play with the new products. I usually use silk artist Leonard Thompson's technique of "hidden" gutta lines in my silk paintings but tried Jean Baptiste's acetate cones to apply a coloured resist. I mixed up the water based resist, added black Liquid Colour, got a nice flowing consistency and got to work simplifying my sketches directly on the silk with the resist. The cones when I figured out how to vary the size of the openings work very well and are very kind for arthritic hands!
Picture
At this point I am happy with the design and added pure and diluted colours.
Picture
Everything seems to be going well, no big splotches and resist lines are holding nicely. After a day of toying with different layouts for the backgrounds, I choose my sketch and use the same black water-based resist.
Picture
I continue on, playing with Jean Baptiste's shimmering light technique until I am finished painting. The Liquid Colours are fixed with a warm iron, no fussing for hours with a steamer, then G&S Dyes recommend waiting a few days before washing to retain colour brightness.
I cannot begin to tell you my dismay when I washed the silk and saw the black in the resist float off into the water! All those hours gone in 2minutes in the wash! BUT I ironed the silk, looked at the lovely soft grey resist lines and liked the finished piece better than with the heavier  black lines I had planned!
Picture
Picture
I am delighted to say that the piece sold at the opening reception and is off to a new home when the show closes on Saturday October 24.

And two lessons learned: 1)  read instructions before using new materials [I should have substituted black Liquid Colour for water in mixing the resist, not added black to water mixed resist] and 2) accidental experiments can be very rewarding!

You can see the rest of my pieces in Places Near and Far on my Picasa public site.
6 Comments

Places Near and Far at the Terrace Art Gallery

10/1/2015

3 Comments

 
The opening reception is on Friday October 2 from 7-9pm at the Terrace Art Gallery, 4610 Park Avenue in Terrace, British Columbia. After spending most of 2014 travelling and painting and much of 2015 in the studio with some travel time, Maureen and I are delighted to invite you to see our new show of fibre art and paintings.

Picture
The upper gallery is filled with paintings of places near to our homes in north western British Columbia. The lower gallery visits Newfoundland and Labrador, the U.S.A., Costa Rica, Europe and India. All of the paintings in the show are complemented by fibre art.  The poster shows Maureen's painting of Opheim Way in Kitimat edged with her knitted fibre pieces and my painting Canyon Cactus in Sedona, Arizona is edged with a handwoven cotton blanket. We hope you can join us at the reception or take in the show between October 2nd-24th 2015.

3 Comments

    Author

    Kathleen Stuart is a paper and fibre artist who lives in northern British Columbia, Canada.

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    March 2018
    October 2015
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.