Silk Painting - Going With The Flow

I love painting flowers!! This is a detail of a piece called "Blue Poppies".

I love vibrant colors!!

And brushes!!

And dyes!! And art supplies of all shapes and sizes!!

Two weeks ago, I took a few pictures of my neighbor's beautiful Tulips, wanting to use them as reference for a silk scarf I was going to paint.

When I tried to upload them to my computer, the camera's battery was dead!

After charging it and uploading the pictures, the printer wouldn't work!!

Trying not to lose it, I took a deep breath, went into my storage area and grabbed an armful of silk Tulips! (Going with the flow.)

Silk flowers come in handy, if you don't have the real-deal! Aren't they gorgeous?!

I was all set to go! I hand-washed the white silk and hung it to dry.

Then I attached it to the stretcher-bars.

I figured out my color scheme using my silk 'color-chart'.

I made a drawing of what I had in mind.

These were the colors I decided on.

Then I chose my dyes and...

Really?

After cleaning up the mess, I outlined the design with a water-soluble resist.

When it dried, I painted the flowers and leaves.

Later, when I painted the background, I realized that the resist was too thin and the colors bled. Seriously?!!

I had to outline the design with resist again, and when it was dry, paint over the areas that bled.

Then the scarf was rolled in steaming paper and placed in a steamer.

It steamed on the stove for three hours.

I usually have five or six scarves steaming at the same time, but I needed this one for this post. :)

After the steaming process, the scarf was hand-washed and rinsed until the water was clear, hung to dry and ironed. (The colors are then permanent.)

Since I'd decided to paint a pink background instead of the darker one, like in my drawing, the colors just didn't 'pop' enough for me.

I hung it back on the stretcher-bars and outlined the entire design in black, giving it a more graphic look.

Now it had to go back in the steamer for another three hours and be washed and ironed again!

And finally, on the third day -

It's finished! (Oh happy day!!)

Not wanting to waste the left-over dyes, I decided to paint a Poppy.

No muss! No fuss! Just for fun.

Why a Poppy?

Because, in that armful of Tulips, was this single, flattened-out, faded Poppy!

There was just something about it.

So, like before, I hand-washed, dried and attached the new scarf to the stretcher-bars.

But this time, I didn't do any of the sketching and thinking about it, I just dove right in.

(But I made sure to use a thicker resist!)

(I LOVE my studio!!)

Like the other scarf, this one went into the steamer for three hours, was hand-washed, ironed and...

TA DA!!

Not one problem!! And I'm really happy with it.

Sometimes "going with the flow" doesn't suck!

Signing off for now,

gabriele