I thought I'd photo document my most recent scarf creation. Hopefully you'll be inspired to create one yourself. Painting on silk is really very easy. I taught myself by simply watching some YouTube videos while ironing laundry.
What You'll Need:
1. silk you can buy this online or at Jerry's Art-O-Rama
2. silk
paint3. A tiny
paintbrush 4. Gutta Resist and little squeeze bottle with a metal hollow tip (like a mini cake decorating tip) You can get these online or at Jerry's Art Store as well.
5 A frame. My awesome boyfriend made this frame for me with pieces of scrap wood. But you can use anything that lifts and stretches your silk off the table.
Using thumbtacks securely stretch your silk across the frame. All four sides would be best, but as you can see in my picture. My silk scarf is long and thin and I'm only able to affix three sides to the frame. That's okay, as long and it's tight enough that the silk won't touch the table.
Using the Gutta Resist draw out your design. It can be a simple geometric pattern. I'm using free flowing lines to create the individual feathers that make up the Peacock feather. The resist acts like a barrier and has the consistency of liquid rubber cement. Make sure your lines are thick enough to ensure that the ink won't bleed through. The resist can be removed after the scarf is finished by dry-cleaning it. And all that will be left is the pure white silk beneath.
Pour a tiny amount of the highly concentrated silk paint into separate containers. You can use water to decrease the intensity of the ink color. But keep in mind the ink will dry much lighter than it looks when it's wet. Use your paint brush to "color in the lines." It's that simple. The resist will keep the ink from going places you don't want it too--as long as you can color in the lines.
Careful for drips! The silk acts as a wick and it only takes a tiny drop of ink to create a large area of color. Feel free to mix and blend the paint/ink however you like. These paints do a lovely job of looking like a watercolor painting and it's hard to go wrong with color combinations
Half-way though my project I decided that I didn't have enough individual "feathers" so I went back in and created more using the gutta resist. You can always add to your design. This scarf is going to have several separate painted areas. Just make sure the ink is dry before you move the silk around.
Now one section of my scarf is finished. I'm going to let it dry before I move it to work on other areas of the scarf. Still to come...
setting the ink so the scarf is machine washable and the colors won't bleed.
I last left off with how to paint a silk scarf. We previously finished applying the paint and the next step is to set the ink. You want to "fix" or "set" it so that when you wash your scarf or it gets rained on, the colors won't bleed and ruin your lovely design. Setting the ink is really easy. You just buy some dye fixative. Follow the instructions which involves pouring a small amount of fixative in a cold water bath. Then swish and soak your scarf in the fixative bath water. Don't freak out when when the water turns dark blue, or red or any other color. It's normal for the inks to bleed out into the water. It won't hurt the rest of your scarf. Let it soak for about 5 mins. Hang to dry and you're done! Well, sort of done. With this scarf I decided to get a little crazy and experiment with some gold metallic paint. I painted it on just like the other inks except the you don't have to use the gutta resist. The metallic paint acts more like regular acrylic and you don't have to worry about it bleeding. To set the metallic paint you just iron it, essentially melting the paint into the fabric itself. Then the only thing left to do is have your scarf professionally dry-cleaned. This will cost about $4-$5. I've tried doing it myself with Dryel, but it doesn't work. The reason you have to dry-clean it is to remove the yucky, sticky gutta resist. Once it's dry-cleaned all that will be left is the pure white of the silk. Soft and luxurious and worth a million bucks.
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