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!
At this point I am happy with the design and added pure and diluted colours.
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.
| 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! |  |
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.
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.
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