Silk Painting

Painting on silk is a unique art form that’s growing in popularity. The colors and textures you can achieve are different from those found in any other form of painting. If you’d like to try silk painting, here’s how you can get started. First choose your fabric. Start with white or natural silk that has been prepared for dyeing. The natural oils and gums have been removed but no sizing or finishing chemicals have been applied. Your best bet is best to buy from a company that specializes in fabrics for dyeing. “Regular” fabric store silk has been treated and will not readily accept the dye.
Silk comes in many weights and weaves. If you’re new to silk painting, use a smooth and lightweight silk.

What You’ll Need
Once you have your silk, you’ll need paints. There are many products available in craft stores and in some department stores for silk painting. (You can even find kits at craft chain stores like Ben Franklin, and sometimes at larger department stores like K-Mart or Wal-Mart.)

The traditional materials used for painting are French dye and gutta. Many people prefer Tinfix and Super Tinfix, which are French dyes made by Sennelier. Dyes come in an array of colors and can be intermixed for an infinite palette. Or if you'd like you could mix all of your colors from yellow, cyan and fuchsia.

Gutta is the resist used to form the lines on the silk. It is usually applied with a fine-tipped squeeze bottle. Resist acts as a barrier to the flowing dyes. Traditional gutta is a latex product and must be dry cleaned for removal. Many painters use a water soluble resist called Resist Bein. After the finished painting is steam set, the resist is washed out in cold water. The downside of water soluble resist is that, unlike gutta, the dye cannot be painted over the resist line or it will leave a stain.

Clear resist and gutta leave a white (silk) line when removed. For variety resist is also available in black and metallic colors.

Preparing to Paint
Stretch the silk tight so it can’t touch the surface below. This can be done with a commercial stretcher, on a wooden frame, or across 2 x 4s clamped to a table. Either tack the silk edges to the stretcher unit or hammer nails into the wood every few inches, using a heavy-duty thread to sew through the silk and around the nails.

Painting

You can work spontaneously and begin applying your design with the resist. But if you prefer to have more control and plan ahead, the design can be drawn on the silk using a disappearing ink pen. You can find disappearing ink pens at most fabric stores. Be sure to use the kind that fades on its own, not one that has to be washed out.

The lighter weight the silk is the faster the ink will disappear, but you usually have a few hours before the design fades completely away. You can even draw your design in black ink on paper first and place it under the silk to be traced if you like. When you’re ready to apply the resist, squeeze the bottle with the tip touching the silk. The resist must go all the way through the silk or the dye won't be stopped and will spread over the line. Be sure to let the resist dry before you begin painting.

When you touch the dye-loaded brush to the silk the dye will spread. It will take some practice to know how much dye to use and how close you can get to the resist line before the dye overflows. Colors can be mixed in the jars and to some extent on the silk as you paint. The dye dries quickly and if a wet edge meets a dry edge a dark permanent line will appear. This can be used as a design element if you are aware of it, but to avoid it, work out from the wet areas and carefully plan your design so there are no large awkward spaces to try to fill in.

Some special effects can be achieved with isopropyl alcohol, water, and salt. The alcohol or water can be dropped from an eyedropper or splattered on the dry areas of the painting to produce lighter spots circled in a darker ring. Salt can be sprinkled on wet areas to create a swirling, textured design. The salt absorbs some of the dye to create this look. Experiment with different size salt granules and different colors. Some colors and brands react more than others.

Once the painting is completely dry it can be un-stretched. If it gets wet it will run or stain, so be sure your hands and the table are dry.

Unless you used one of the new silk paints on the market that doesn't need steaming, the dye will now need to be steam-set. After steaming, the wash out the water soluble resist in cold water and iron the silk while it’s still damp.

With a little patience, and if you’re a first-timer, maybe a little luck, you now have a beautiful silk painting to display.

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