I don’t know what we did at shows before smart phones, where we can look at the radar in real time and see what kind of weather is coming our way. It helps a great deal, knowing if a storm is imminent or whether it’s just going to...

Read the whole article... »

They recently had event called Celebration of Courage, and the director wanted to gift the volunteers a hand painted scarf. Their logo is a teal ribbon and she wanted something that would tie in with that. After going back and forth on several ideas, we settled on the design below. It features ribbon-like waves in various shades of teal, with purple and navy accents. I thoroughly enjoyed this project, as...

Read the whole article... »

Here is the tallit with the atarah (neck-band) and corners sewn on. Traditionally, the atarah often has a prayer or blessing written on it, but my client opted for a coordinating design instead. The shawl itself is a soft, shimmery and drapey silk charmeuse. The atarah and corners are  dupioni, which is a crisper silk and perfect for that purpose.

Tallit, 14 x 72. Dyes and resist on...

Read the whole article... »

My client Michele came across one of my previous blog posts where I showed the...

Read the whole article... »

 These are the results of the first part of the workshop, where students just play with the dyes and resist, making discoveries as they go along.

With some good practice under the belt,...

Read the whole article... »

Two more batik florals join my bouquet of funky, colorful peony-inspired silk paintings.  This previous post and the ones before it showed their development. I find it so fascinating watching how what seems at first like unrelated shapes, come together to form a semblance of a flower, as successive layers of dye and wax are painted.

Peony in Joy 3, 10 x 8. Dyes and wax on silk



Peony in Joy 4, 10 x 8. Dyes and wax on silk



This is what Peony in Joy 3 & 4 might look like in your breakfast room.



And here they are together with # 1 and 2.

Read the whole article... »

Continuing the steps of painting my abstracted peonies (previous post) with more wax and dye. Even though I have my design drawn on the silk with a pencil, it’s by now it’s pretty hard to make it out underneath all the layers! I’m doing a lot of guessing, but it’s gratifying to see petal shapes being formed.

Here I’m done with the flowers and the whole paintings are covered in wax and the wax cracked. I’ve painted dye over the cracks but you really can’t see it because of the wax. All will be revealed when the wax is removed!

Since I had so much fun painting ‘Peony in Joy 1 & 2′ (this previous post), I decided to do another pair of peony paintings in the same expressionistic style. Again I started off with a dynamic, multicolored abstract background and building up the flower shapes from that, painting in successive layers of dye and wax in batik technique.

Here’s my first layer of dye. (This is both paintings side by side on my frame). I realized after the dyes had dried that I had started off with much stronger colors than I intended – usually my first wash is extremely pale. I could have washed some of the color out, but...

Read the whole article... »

I painted a design on my screen with thickened dye and let it dry. I then used very pale thickened dye as a print paste (or in this case, release paste). As the dried dyes on the screen get wet from pulling the paste down the screen, the color releases onto the silk I have underneath. Until the dye gets wet enough, it actually acts as a resist.

I laid a piece of white silk over a piece of freezer paper that had some old dried-up dye on it from a previous project, so those colors would transfer onto my new silk as I...

Read the whole article... »

Deconstructed screen printing. Sounds intriguing? It’s a fascinating twist on traditional screen printing developed by Kerr Grabowski. Basically, you apply thickened dyes to a printing screen and use a release paste (just clear dye thickener) to gradually release the color from the screen onto the fabric in a number of successive prints. You can also use found objects to impress textures into the dyes. Check out Kerr’s website for more detailed info and to see video snippets.

10 of the Piedmont Silk Painters met at Marcia Ferris’ studio to try out this process. Marcia and Joanna, who had done this before, led the...

Read the whole article... »