Silk scarves - setting paint in the sun

At last I did some of my sunpainting on silk scarves.  I had a friend around and we each made one and then I used up the excess paint to do a final one and that turned out to be my favorite.  This was the first one I made.  Black and green, with cardboard butterflies and ferns from the garden.  The other one was similar, but with pink and green..

 with the leftover paint I think I laid it on thicker and put it out into the sun while it was wetter.

 that one in fact worked the best!

 the shapes came out much clearer and I think the color is brighter.

 this is the first one finished - the ferns left an imprint but the cardboard butterflies did nothing - interesting.

 Look at the amazing detail from the plumbago flowers even though they were so light and delicate.

 I used setacolor transparent paints, and a couple of things I learned were:
put the item out in the sun asap - this makes the color brighter.
Use natural items out of the garden - not cardboard designs.
Have you done anything like this before?

I got my supplies from http://www.dharmatrading.com  - they have not given me any discounts or rewards for recommending them.  It is a great site - they have  a lot of tutorials and advice and I found there prices and delivery very satisfactory.

Silk painting lesson 1

I attended my first silk painting class today, and boy am I hooked!   This particular type of paint does not require the painting of gouche to stop color running and comes in the most amazing array of colors.  

First of all we started with a piece of dry silk and a strong color strength. I did the center pink in the strong color and then the blue in the corner, but decided to have it weakened after that. This was an experiment to see what the paint does on dry silk and how it flows/ does not flow. It is free form with bits of cotton wool dipped into the paint and swept over the fabric.



 next we tried a bit of color on dry silk (the green)  and then wet the fabric and added more colors.

 This is the detail of how the color that was applied to dry silk flows into the wet color.

 I was of course (as usual) the student always trying to "design" something and was told to try to loosen up and just apply the colours in stripes with no design in mind just to experiment. 

 then three different colors were applied to wet silk that had been lifted up to allow air bubbles to form underneath.  This creates distinct lines around the eges which I liked the effect of.

 Next the instuctor chose four random colors and said to just lay them on the wet fabric and see what appeared.  Honestly I couldnt beleive it (nor could she) when  a dolphin appeared!  All I had to add was  the eye :)

end of lesson part 1 - I cant wait for the next lesson!