What Is Silk Painting?

• 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!

1. Stretch a piece of plain, undyed silk on a frame (artist's stretcher bars work well).

2. 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).

3. 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.

4. Paint! Mix colors together, moosh 'em around, watch them bleed.

5. Let it dry.

6. 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 let the coil touch the water in the bottom of the pot. Steaming usually sets the dye best. You must be careful to let the steam escape freely, however, so condensation doesn't sit on the silk and leave droplet patterns.

   I used to pin my silks inside an old sheet, so they wouldn't bend in and stain themselves, then put the whole thing in a heavy-duty laundromat dryer on high heat for 20 minutes. However, often I could not get the dryer hot enough, so the dye did not set thoroughly.

7. After steaming, let the silk sit for at least 24 hours.

8. Rinse the silk in hot water. This melts the wax and removes excess ink.

9. When the silk rinses clean, immediately iron it to remove wrinkles and dry the silk.

Want to see more? See the demos: Creating a shawl
Building a steamer

Dana paints a silk. Her silk doesn't have any wax; instead it was painted with a solution to prevent the ink from bleeding quite so much.

A stretched, drying silk. The lines were created with UnGutta. The colors look a little muddy; you always paint a bit darker than the result you want, since some of the ink washes out after setting.

Instructor Joy-Lily and a student pull a roll of steamed silk wrapped in muslin from the steaming tube (formerly a ventilation pipe for a stove). Out of the picture: a hot plate with a pot of boiling water sits under the tube.

Student and Joy-Lily (in pink) hold up the "class project:" the steamed, rinsed, and dried silk the class painted before beginning their own silks.