Silk Painting
I love silk … it feels like whisper soft elegant luxurious angel wings against my skin. Silk painting sounds exotic and full of mystery and speaks to my soul of foreign lands full of tropical flowers, torrid humid heat & street markets full of vendors.
Truth be told … silk painting is the process of applying fabric dyes or fabric paints to silk fabric. There are marvelous silk painters who live in exotic or foreign to me lands though … i.e.:
Costa Rica Silks
Silk Scarves Colorado
I started painting silk scarves when I lived in the Houston, TX area … then I moved to a foreign to me land 
… South Dakota in November 2010. Very few palm trees in SD … so far I have not seen any at all … but I have not been to the zoo yet so there might be one or two there … but there is a lot of palm tree motif on products here too … table cloths, rugs, curtains, mural on a wall across town … just like there was in Texas. Palm trees are lovely graceful creatures that remind us of warm weather, sunbathing, sand between our toes and vacations away from the office or the frigid winter icy/snowy weather.
16.5 mm Stone Washed Crepe-de-Chine Silk Scarf Sample
“Silk’s absorbency makes it comfortable to wear in warm weather and while active. Its low conductivity keeps warm air close to the skin during cold weather.”
I have heard from other people for years that silk is only a hot weather fabric but having worn it in both hot & cold weather … for more than 40 years in both Iowa & Texas … it worked really well for me in every season in every weather. Wearing silk was cool in the humid heat of Texas and warm in the frigid cold of Iowa.
Choosing what paints and/or dyes that I wanted to work with was the most difficult decision for me … I researched my options for months.
I have vision issues … lazy eye = no depth perception … translates into guessing when ironing and I have a heavy touch so it would be very easy for me to burn the silk fabric trying to heat set dyes.
I am extremely physically clumsy (partly due to my vision problems) … it would be very easy to burn myself if I tried steaming dyed silk with not having any idea of what I am doing. I am hoping to be able to afford to take some silk dyeing classes next summer in 2012.
Here is a great summary of the available choices for silk painting from Dharma Trading – I chose #4 to start since I was doing this completely on my own & learning as I went and I quote
“Type 4. Instant-Set Pigment Silk Dye – just dilute, paint on and air dry for 12-24 hours. No fixatives, steaming or heatsetting required! Like a hybrid between a dye and a paint – Leaves a slight testure on the silk and a softer color than the Type 3 paints.”
I am a customer of Dharma Trading but no one is paying me or gifting me anything to tell you this is where I buy many of my silk painting art supplies. I buy their silk scarves (mostly but not always, their 12mm Crepe de Chine) and I buy Colorhue Instant-Set Silk Dyes – I also bought their Fabric Mate Fabric Markers Sets (fine tip & large tip) – BEFORE I discovered I could buy them individually at my local Hobby Lobby store … a giant benefit of Hobby Lobby is not paying shipping from California and being able to go get one in 30 minutes if I run out of a color!
The Colorhue dye colors are very pretty … the more dye used the brighter darker jewel tone color I get … if I use the markers first on my silk scarf, the dye does not re-color the design … it just colors the blank silk fabric around it. I follow the directions in the package with the dye (or on Ginny Eckley’s website [the dye creator]) and they work perfectly for me … other people have noted mixed results in the Dharma website reviews.
I am NOT using a frame nor tacking the scarf material down with tacks or pins to paint on it … I look forward to those “spreading stain” moments … for right now, I use no Gutta/resist except the fabric markers … which also contain fabric dyes that are permanent without heat setting and whose colors mix together just like dyes.
I read somewhere that artists should not reveal “all” their secrets … I believe there is room in the marketplace for mine and yours and everyone else’s … you can do similar to mine yet not exactly like mine … and if someone likes mine and yours … they just might buy both … but they cannot buy both if both are not there for them to buy. Nor do I expect everyone to like and want mine instead of someone else’s … my whimsical trees may not appeal to everyone … choice is a good thing for us all!!!
(Canary) Yellow - 19.5 mm Silk Charmeuse Scarf
Planned Product Offerings – Sometimes when I worked in business offices, I just needed a solid color for business wear … if I had a patterned blouse then I did not want a scarf with a pattern on it … sometimes I wanted a patterned scarf to liven up a plain solid color suit/blouse combination. If the season fashion colors are orange & brown & purple … just try finding yellow, green, blue or pink in a department store.
So … I plan to offer some plain solid colors in pretty shades for those moments you need a solid color – I will also offer my whimsical palm trees and assorted other whimsical trees and abstract designs as well. Sometimes I will even create an entire landscape painting on a silk scarf, suitable for wearing or using as a wall hanging.
Each and every silk scarf I create is a true one of a kind unique item – the solid color scarves are also hand dyed by me and I tend to just pour in a bit of dye rather than measure – similar to the way my grandmother taught me to cook. – so the colors may be similar but not exact matching from one dye batch to the next. Most of my “Business Wear Line” will be 8″ x 54″ size. Once listed at Etsy, the dimensions of each piece will be noted in the listing.
Washing/Drying – I recommend hand washing in very mild soap and air drying because they are silk. They can be ironed on a silk setting. I have put mine in the dryer on delicate but it can wear them out much quicker.
Uses – neck or head scarves … head bands … hat bands … belts … shawls, sarongs or veils for larger/longer sizes … purse decorations … bicycle streamers … mirror decorations … ?????
Scarf Wearing – there are lots of ways to fold or tie a scarf or you can use scarf pins or jewelry to hold it together and/or in place. Below is just one sample of ways to tie a scarf that I discovered by searching the Internet
My future plans as a silk painter … learning more about these artist’s techniques … Karen Sistek as well as Ann E. Taecker and listing my silk scarves in my own Etsy shop.
I also plan on doing local Arts & Crafts Fairs/Shows in South Dakota & Iowa and perhaps Nebraska later on … my sister still lives in Des Moines, IA and she makes fabulous scrapbooking cards and backgrounds so going to shows with her will be lots of fun for both of us! I also will be listing online my original watercolor greeting cards, some original watercolors & ACEO’s.