SIlk Painting

One of my favorite things I learned in school was silk painting. My mother has one hanging in her home that I made for her with some embroidery and beading. Everyone tends to gravitate towards it.

So I was commissioned to make a silk painting for my cousin. Honoring her heritage and something that is close to me, i chose the subject matter of "the day of the dead". A little more of why I chose this is for the symbolism it has to honor the ones that have past. I adore the concept and did a lot of research before starting the project.

So i started sketching my heart out. The sketch is on a 40" x 40" conjured piece of drawing paper. (As you can see I masked a few pieces together.) I chose the skulls and different flowers they use to celebrate

 

Once I had finalized my sketch it was time to map it out in permanent marker.

 Here's what the final looked like. The next step was to make the stretcher. Elastic and some staples. Bent t-pins were used to secure and stretch it. Take the stretched silk and lay it over the drawing with permanent marker. I used a water soluble resist to trace the lines. ( In the first try I tinted the lines with black and outlined everything that was drawn.)

 Testing my way through techniques I had learned in school, I slowly reacquainted myself with the techniques. Salt will draw up color where water will disperse the colors. I found with the details on the silk with resist that it prevented me from having exact lines. The resist was watered down some from tinting and in the end I did not like the outcome that had given it aesthetically. 

So this is where the trial ended. While some parts were visually pleasing, I found other parts were missing something. That's why it's always important to sample, sample, sample. So finally here's  what I came up with:

 I used two coats of colors in some areas to make them more vibrant. Once everything has dried (I left mine for a day or two due to work.) Iron it on the proper settings to heat set the color. Wash out the resist thoroughly. It kind of soaps up but no color washed out. Also, the salt will wash out/off at this point in time too. To dry silk, I iron it on a low heat setting to have it flat and smooth. Silk can be tricky to work with.

I left off some of the more intricate line details so I can embroider them on to give it some texture. I'm also going to add some beads for more texture and some detail accents.  Once that's accomplished I'll give some detail photos.