Silk Painting - A Special Scarf For A Special Lady

I love painting flowers!

This is "Parrot Tulips" - a 42" x 42" Crepe de Chine scarf.

I was commissioned by my friends at the Betty Ferguson Foundation,

to paint a silk scarf for this years "Woman of Honor" -

the fabulous Jacquie Petersen.

I was told that her favorite flower was the Gardenia.

(I can almost smell it! Yum!)

The first thing I did was freak-out just a little,

because white flowers are the most difficult to paint.

Jacquie, are you sure you wouldn't rather have red Roses, blue Poppies,

yellow Sunflowers?! :)

I snapped out of it - and gathered my supplies.

Brushes -

Dyes -

Silk flowers for inspiration -

Look! I even found a cute, white-flower tea pot! (I'm so easily amused.)

Getting down to business -

I made a drawing of what I had in mind.

But wait! Before I go any further, let's play a little game.

As some of you know, this is my little friend, Mel-Mel.

Unlike "Eleanor Rigby" who's already 'wearing her face',

Mel-Mel's is still 'in a jar by the door'.

(I haven't painted her little face yet. It's SO tiny, it's big-time intimidating.)

Anyway, I've hidden Mel-Mel in some of the photographs. :)

Can you find her? How many times?

* (I'll tell you at the end, but NO peeking!)

OK, moving on -

I checked out my silk 'color-chart' to see which colors I wanted to go with.

Even though the flower is white, there are pastel colors involved.

I realized that I had a color-scheme already planned-out,

from a white flower I'd painted before. That saved me a bunch of time!

I hand-washed the silk.

And hung it to dry.

I attached it to the stretcher-bars.

I set up my dyes and did a little testing on a scrap-piece of silk.

I sketched out my design with a disappearing-ink pen.

(Not to be used on checks.)

I used a light color for my linear-underpainting.

After it was dry, I outlined the entire design with a water-soluble resist.

I used a hair-dryer to speed-up the drying process.

Then I painted. (The part I love the most!)

I used a little Vodka to slow the dyes down, so that some white areas remained on the flowers.

Some artists use Rubbing Alcohol, but I'm allergic to it and don't like the smell. Nasty!

(How many of you are making Vodka jokes right now?!:)

DONE!!

Well, the painting part of it anyway.

I rolled the scarf in several layers of paper.

Then taped it up.

I stuck it in a steamer - and steamed it on the stove for three hours.

Unwrapping it after steaming is fun, because the colors are more intense

and it's like looking at it for the first time! Ahhhhhhh

Then, more hand-washing -

More drying -

Some ironing.

And finally, here it is - "Gardenias For Jacquie".

Here's a photo from a previous post,

"Silk-Painting - Going With The Flow".

It's me, in my studio. I love my studio!! I love silk-painting!!

(I love comments! I love Followers!;)

* (Four times.) :)

Signing off for now,

gabriele