Entry for February 22, 2008
This weekend I'll be teaching a class on painting on silk. We'll be painting silk scarves using three different techniques. In all three, we will be using Dye-na-flow by Jaquard. This is a very versatile paint that works on natural and synthetic fabrics. It requires heat setting to make it permanant( just a quick 15-20 seconds with a hot iron, or a few minutes in a hot dryer).
Dye-na-flow has almost the same consistency as water and can be used like a dye (thus the name) to dye paint fabric. Most silk dyes require a mordant and steaming to set. With this dye painting technqiue you don't need any special tools like a steamer! The photo above shows three different techniques. Each one easy for even beginners to do.
The first scarf (yellow green) was first dye painted using an intense yellow paint. To do this I added about 3Tbs of paint to about 12 ounces of water. I scrunched the scarf down into the cup of dye paint till is was thouroghly saturated, wrung out the excess and laid it flat on plastic. It was allowed to dry and was heat set. I then wrapped the scarf around a piece of plastic pipe (2 1/2" diameter), tied it randomly with a thin piece of string then scrunched it up (shibori style) and over dye painted it in a dark green. I used a 2" sponge brush for this step and allowed the whole thing to dry most of the way on the pole then unwrapped it and laid it out flat to completely dry.
The second blue/green scarf was first dye painted in the same way as above in a medium green color, air dryed and heat set. I then divided the length into three sections. The middle section I tied off with large round beads at equal intervals. The two end sections I gathered with 12 rows of running stitches and pulled the gathers up tight. I then emersed the whole thing in a cup filled with dark blue dye paint (same recipie as above). I let it dry overnight then cut all of the strings and removed the beads. It was a bit damp so I let it dry the rest of the day then heat set it.
The last scarf was free form painted using paint mixed with equal parts water and three different widths of foam brushes, 1", 2" and 3". I painted it on a dry scarf to see how it would work. I usually paint on a wet or misted scarf to allow the paint to move more easily. I wasn't impressed with the hard lines left by the dry scarf and probably will not use this technqiue again unless I've got the scarf in a frame and am using resist.
I'll show you all some photos of student work next week.
Have a great weekend,
Heather
