What is silk painting?
Silk painting is cool. It’s like • watercoloring without the bleed • batik without the big wax drips • tie-dye with more control • coloring in a coloring book — but you draw the lines! The basic steps: • Stretch a piece of plain, undyed silk on a frame (artist’s stretcher bars work well). • Mix dyes to create colors, tints, and shades. The dyes are non-toxic and soluble in a solution of water, baking soda, and dried urea (no, it doesn’t smell). • Optional: With gutta percha or “ungutta”, draw areas on the silk — the outlines of a picture, for example. The wax resists the ink, and prevents it from spreading. • Paint! Mix colors together, moosh ’em around, watch them bleed. • Let it dry. • Set the ink with heat. You can steam the silk as follows: wrap it in newspaper and muslin, then place it in a tube over a pot of boiling water and let steam for 20 minutes. Or wrap it in newspaper, coil it into a spiral, and set it on top of a steamer rack in a large steamer pot, taking care not to l
