Green Vine Scarf

Today, apart from finishing the catches on a couple of necklaces, I decided to do some silk painting. I am hoping to do quite a few scarves as presents this year. My Greta Aunt and Grandma normally get jewellery but I thought a change might be nice so this year they will get scarves. I also want to do a scarf for each of my close family.

I recently bought a book on silk painting and this has really helped. I have discovered that the best way to get smooth blending is to paint on wet silk. I also bought a few more tools and dyes and things. I still really need a frame though. Having the silk on the wall means the dye and water can gloop behind the silk and stick it to the wall. This effects the eveness of colour.

My Great Aunt likes all things green. I began by watering down some turquoise and painting the entire scarf. I then found a vine pattern I liked and copied the core pattern and blew it up. I then copied it onto the scarf using clear gesso. I then painted over it all with two shades of green in both diluted and neat form. The pattern has been preserved in turquoise and is lovely and subtle. I think this scarf looks a lot better than my previous efforts, despite being so simple... Wet silk is definitely easier to paint!

Dad's Day

One of the things I have been up to is this - a birthday pressie for my Dad. He loves greyhounds so even if he never uses his new silk hankie he will love it....

Altar, Alter

Today I received a little packet of loveliness in the post, all the way from the other side of the world. One of the things was a beautiful clay disc with different symbols on each side. This disc is for use in earth healing and if you want to know more then Miss R is the lady and this is the place to go....

Now this disc was so lovely that it needed some place good to go. My altar was the obvious place for it to go. Except my altar only really existed in my head. I had the table in place but nothing beyond that. I suddenly realised I needed to gather the things together for it and get it done...


This was the first ever piece of silk painting I did and I always intended it to go on my altar and now it is, finally, there....


Some time ago I started, but never really finished a hearth craft course. I found a beautiful stone way back when which has been living in my kitchen. I always intended to paint it and tonight I finally did...


Here is my altar with the candle I dedicated on my hearthstone. The little figure is a very plain and crude polymer clay effort of mine. I struggled with this type of clay but a little prayer and it suddenly played ball and moved into shape. The ribbon I was given at Bride and of course, my new clay disc.

In large part, my abortive teacher training is responsible for the growth in craftiness in my life. This is a papier mache mask I made in one of our art sessions at college. We were supposed to work in pairs but I didn't, I wanted it to be mine and I had a vision. I had to work like crazy to get it done in the time but I did... and I love it. She sits above my altar...

So thank you Miss R, I achieved a lot today because of a lovely little gift...

Roundup

This week hasn't been so very creative as others in many ways. Being sociable has reduced my free evenings and I am not sure if writing an astrology chart counts as creativity.

I have been having a few issues...

I intended to paint some patterns on to cotton for another project. I used silk paints and gutta to make the lines. The paint spread along the threads under the gutta. I painted the gutta on both sides but it just couldn't penetrate the heavy cotton threads enough and the silk paints just soaked along them, spreading colour. I guess this why batik using wax is more common on cotton.

Today I bought four little pots of fabric paint as well as some fabric painting brush pens. I am looking forward to seeing how they work out and whether or not I can get the effects I want.

I have also done a little braiding. This is a lovely skill I first learnt at a workshop I went to with my Mum. She chose to do one on something more patchworking but not being a sewer so much i went and braided. We used simple cardboard circles with notches in them to hold the threads. I now have a foam disc with many notches which came with instructions for producing more patterns of braid than the one I had always used before. It is very theraputic, moving the threads and something I can do with little thought in front of the TV, once I reach a nice rhythm.

WTJ stalled. I used last weekend for starting my wish jar and astrological chart rather than wrecking. I did a little today but this was on the page sent to be by the most marvellous Mel. I can't say what is in progress but I really decided to torture the poor thing! In the olden days, the most vile of criminals were sometimes hung, drawn, and quartered. I won't describe that barbaric practice here but suffice it to say the poor page has been hung, drawn (or coloured) and quartered but also stabbed and filled with little bullets. Well and truly destroyed... *grin*

I also started a book called The Artist's Way with a group at On The Wing and I think this is going to be a beautiful creative journey....

Blog Candy: Aimeslee

I have finally sent of my first piece of blogcandy and when you finally get to read this it will have been received by the lovely Aimeslee!

I started silk painting this year with only instructions found online to help me. I have created three painted scarves. One for me, one for Mel and now a third....


I only had four colours of paint but I have now expanded my collection to seven!

The third and latest scarf was rather more complicated than my previous efforts. I had wanted to use some Islamic art and this was a good opportunity. This meant that the design was rather more ambitious than anything I had previously tried. In this style of silk painting you use thick goopy paint to draw lines that act as barriers for the liquid paints. In this design the gutta is black and there was an awful lot to apply! I copied the block and pinned the copies to the wall and stuck the scarf on top and then copied the pattern onto the scraf. Then I had to add paint inbetween all the lines.

The borders are a little different though as there is no gutta and the paints are more roughly applied so they merge and run into each other more. The very centre was painted in grey first before the navy was added over the top. The affect of the navy paint was achieved by sprinkling some alcohol on to carry the wet navy paint.

Although I love the scarf I am not sure if I would do one like it again. It was very time consuming and the precise design was difficult to do correctly. The scarf is full of mistakes. And I don't want to think about the time it took!

The scarf has had an interesting journey to it's destination that has been considerably lengthened by arrival at the wrong address. So it actually ended it up with not one but two postal journeys...

One other thing is that the process of making the scarf has left me with quite a few pieces of interesting paper where the thick black gutta has soaked through and the liquid silk paints have soaked into the paper. Every one is different and beautiful!