silk painting

It takes great effort for me to sit and be still. The stillness I refer to is inner quietness.  Meditating is something that requires great effort on my part because I am constantly thinking. Sometimes when I mediate it feels like I am walking a crazed dog that is pulling me franticly by the leash. My unquiet mind would be that hyper dog. However, while in India studying Mahayana Buddhism I found myself reaching that stillness. It felt dizzying; like I was sitting in a desk chair and someone was spinning me in circles at maximum velocity. Dizzying and swirling yet pure and calm. I tell you this because the image I had cultivate for this scarf was inspire by this outer body experience.
What is more graceful than a delicate pattern painted onto silk. I have always enjoyed using watercolors as a paint medium. It requires patience and restraint. Painting on fabrics demands a lot of the same technique. After I began painting on silk, it was a full on addiction. Sometimes it is like watching a chemical reaction. Lately, my interest in it has grown since I began my forge project for 2013. I am hoping to expand the scarves I make into a business so stay tuned.

Maintaining a tightly stretched fabric is very important when hand painting silk. Sometimes I use a a fabric stretching frame but the cheaper make shift use of a painting canvas frame with push pins works just as well if not better. I absolutely hate stretching my fabric, without fail something goes wrong or my fingers get raw and worn out. But immediately after the delayed success of the stretching step, I get to concoct the dye colors. This step always makes me feel like I am a witch mixing potions. Perhaps I re-watch my Harry Potter DVD collection too often.   

This scarf is rather basic. It has no resistance lines or pattern created with wax or gutta. But after a long break from painting on silk, I needed to keep it simple. However, there are fun and easy ways to create patterns without the resistance technique, my favorite of such is adding salt. Sprinkling salt onto wet dye draws in the pigments, which creates distortion in colors. I think it looks like a chemical reaction.