I’ve been experimenting in finding my own silk painting style lately and while I still haven’t really found it yet it’s been fun so far! Today I’ll show you the techniques I used to make the rose painting below. I was aiming for a finish more like watercolour paints but I still haven’t really got it how I imagine in my head yet!
To begin with I outlined the rose and the leaves etc using clear gutta.   I mixed purple and red for each leaf. I wet the section thoroughly and applied a small amount of red.  I then dripped purple in the inner line of the petal so it mixed with the red.  As it dried I added more water to the centre of each petal so that it moved the ink closer to the edges.  Adding a lot of water was key to this technique.  Each drip moves the paint a little bit so more colour needs to be added in as well.  After each petal dried I repeated again using more paint and more water to layer.  I used the same techniques for the leaves and branches.  The leaves were made with green, yellow and blue.   You need to be careful not to overload the fabric with water otherwise it will drip off the back and take your ink with it!  That’s all of the main parts!   Now the background. I added blue, green and yellow gradually for the whole background. When it began to dry I dripped water in.  More and more colours layered together.  I really loved the colours on the left side background while they were still wet but once they dried it seemed quite dull.  It looked much more bottled green and dark when dry 🙁  For the last steps I heat sealed it and washed out the gutta. The gradients and the techniques are definitely an improvement but I am still not happy with how the colours are drying. I think I need a few really bright blue based pinks and greens for it to be how I picture it in my head!   You can definitely see how the water effects the paint and pushes it around though.    Hope you found the post a little useful and I’ll keep experimenting with my silks! |
