Silk Painting Demonstration

 I was invited to do a silk painting demonstration and talk at the Feltham Art group. It was a friendly and lively group which made it a pleasure.
 I demonstrated painting irises, one of my favourite flowers.
I did the drawing at home and outlined the flowers and leaves with gold gutta to act as a resist and keep the colours within boundaries. Colours spread fast on dry silk. The gutta had gone a bit thick and was rather difficult to pipe from the nozzle but it looked OK. I painted mostly wet on wet and had rather more leaks through the gutta than usual, so I had to work at speed and use the hair dryer often. I quite like a bit of colour flowing into the background and and vice versa into the flowers. I soften the leaked colour with water and dry immediately. The thing to try to avoid is when a bit of colour leaks through unnoticed and dries with a hard edge looking like a bubblegum bubble. Although even those can be turned into something else such as an extra leaf or petal.
I have a bit more work to do on this painting. Back in my studio I used a different tube of gutta and have gone back over some of the lines to make a more waterproof barrier.  Then I will make the background colours much stronger especially behind the leaves. I will show the finished painting in another post.

One of the group asked whether metallic gutta could be used on watercolour paper. An interesting thought which I shall experiment with and report back in another post.

Pink and Lavender Poppy Scarf

This morning's work

Silk paint colours were dripped onto damp silk.

 The pink and lavender were applied using the dropper, then the aquamarine blue was applied with a watercolour brush. while still damp some salt was added to the middle of the poppies to make a bit of texture. It is important to make sure that the whole area is roughly at the same degree of dampness while working on it. When the desired effect was achieved I dried the silk scarf with a hair dryer then ironed it on the cotton setting to make the colours permanent.

It will be on it's way to the Corner Gallery later today with some other scarves and paintings mostly on the theme of lavender and poppies.

It will also go into my etsy shop.