The finished wheel of the Year Silk

Here it is, the finished silk called the Wheel of the Year, details in it, ready to steam. I thought I'd take a photo of it before I steamed the colors to set them just in case it runs & ruins the piece. The original drawing is a simple one so the details, likes the faces, are very rustic & not refined at all. The whole thing took over 2 weeks & much aggrivation, before it was completed. I'll probably mount it on canvas or something similar instead of making it into a scarf. Just let me know what you think. If the steamed piece looks as good as this, I'll post photos of it as well.

Wheel of the Year Painting Progress

Here's the painting as of Saturday, March 29. I still have lots of details to paint in plus the middle ring and the outer edges & corners. It's still going to take a while to finish. The next post will be the finished piece. In the astrology signs, I used colors that are assigned to each sign. I just hope I haven't wasted the past 2 weeks work, once it's finished & steamed, which is the scary part, the steaming of the dyes to set them. You never know how the finished product will look. Stay tuned. . .

Today's painting progress

This is the current progress of the Wheel of the Year silk piece. I'll probably do most of the details in dye based markers like Sharpies. Stay tuned for more updates & further progress.

Painting water with light reflection in it. Technique

I learned a new technique, one that silk artist Daniel Jean-Baptiste uses a lot. That is how to paint water with light reflecting in it. The technique is really simple. It's a wet in wet technique, but any shapes in the painting like the fish, need to be outlined first with some type of resist so the paints/dyes don't flow into areas where they don't belong. Wet the entire area with plain water, using a regular brush " dot" areas of color on the wet surface, then let them alone and just let them bleed as they will. This produces lighter areas of color that bleed from the original color dot. Some areas around the area will remain white, giving the illusion of light reflecting in the water. Water and light have always been some of the toughest effects to produce, this technique makes it easy. Daniel Jean-Baptiste has many wonderful videos on YouTube showing this effect. And he also has a website. This method is used on silk habotai but it might work on other grounds like watercolor paper or canvas, you would have to feather out the edges to blend instead of leaving a hard edge. This is one of the beauties of silk painting, it bleeds so the edges feather & blend on their own due to the nature of the silk.

Progress on the silk Piece

Still working on the Wheel of the Year silk. It's like to painting watercolors on rice paper, which is very absorbent & colors run when the papers wet. So I have to paint a little, let it dry before I paint a little more, repeat. This is going to take a while.
My husband found these neat little capped bottles that are attached in a holder where he works, someone wanted to get rid of them, so he brought them to me, I put small amounts of silk dyes in them with an eye dropper so I don't contaminate the original bottles of dye. I also mix custom colors, like flesh or leaf green in them too. Anyway, the first photo shows this set up, works perfect. Perhaps something similar can be found at a craft store.
The second photo shows the actual silk piece in progress. I needed to re draw some of the elements ( I messed up putting the resist on it originally & had to rinse it out, so parts of the pencil drawing got washed away too) so I went looking for the enlargement of the original sketch only to find I accidentally hid it from myself so I had to get another one made. Anyway, I have a the middle & two sections painted. I turn the piece as needed so the parts I'm working on are always at the top of the design. The whole thing is a big circle, so turning it only makes sense. Because the design is folk art in nature there are not too much detail in the faces & such.
I'll post more as I get more done. Stay tuned. . . . .

WIP on silk

Here's a project I, working on on a large square of silk. I'm taking my time to do it right. Stay tuned for more progress as it goes. As you can see, I have a long way to go. I had the first pic enlarged, traced the enlargement onto the silk to paint. There will be More as the painting comes along.

More new work, silk scarves

Two silk scarves, dyes on silk, done in the microwave. See, it's good for more than a quick meal. :)

Work in progress

This piece is in marker on muslin, so far, it has about 20 hours in it but not near done. Eventually I'll finish it.

Exciting News

My silk work has just been added to http://www.theartofsilk.com/#!cathy-sparks/c21vs website. I'm honored to be in the company of master silk painters & other fine artists who paint on silk. Check it out, see what's possible.

Rekindled Interests

In the past week to so I've returned to a style of painting I first fell in love with back in the mid 1980s, silk painting. At first I found the paints but not the silks. Several years later I found both, so I bought some & tried it again for a while. But life got in the way so I set it aside again. In the past couple of weeks I've returned to the technique, and, being inspired by those master silk painters I found online, am determined to become good at it. Anyway, here are my latest attempts at painting on silk. I have enough supplies now to practice in efforts to get good at it so stay tuned, there will be more.

New marker "Paintings"

My new passion is markers, what can one do with them, how are they made, what dyes, pigments are used in them, what can they be diluted with, if anything, etc. These two projects are done on muslin. They do, once dried & heat set, leave a stiffness to the fabric, similar to that if acrylic paints with textile medium mixed in, but not quite as stiff. I wouldn't use them to cover large areas since they dry out quickly, so store them on the side or with the point side you use down, some come in dual point, brush point with a finer point or a chisel tip on one end.& ,most can be blended or diluted with plain old rubbing alcohol. Use rubbing alcohol to get markers off your fingers too.
Markers can come in all types, I tend to use the higher end like Prismacolor or Copic markers but I also use Tulip brand fabric markers and Sharpie brand as well. These brands are dye based & dilutes with rubbing alcohol. They are supposed to be wash fast but i can't say as to the lightfast of any brands I've tried. Have fun with them, they can do more than you think.