Silky Sunflowers

Here is the last of the silk paintings that I had started to use when I did the demo at Chemers Gallery back in April.  I painted a silk painting using these sunflowers several years ago but used a different background and border.  I like my first one better.  I meant for the blue border in this to be much darker and it is darker than it looks in this picture but not as dark as I wanted.  I just wasn't paying attention I guess.

Anyway, now I'll get back to my more serious paintings.  I have a few drawing done for some watercolor paintings so I'm excited to work on them.  I've gotten silk painting out of my system for now.

Here is the original sunflower silk painting which sold several years ago.

Silky Sunflowers
Image Size 17" x 17"
Silk dyes on silk

Silky Bougainvillea - Silk Painting

I started to work on this a few weeks ago intending to paint it while I was demonstrating silk painting at Chemers gallery.  I put the resist on 3 silks and ended up working only on one - the clivias that I posted earlier this month.  Like that silk, I used a design that I have painted before (I didn't have much time to get things ready for the day) but I made changes that I think make this look entirely different.

The first time I painted it, I used very bright colors and a wrought iron design for the border as you can see below.  For this new one I painted a soft background, more delicate flowers and changed the border.  I also left some of the flowers out.  I think the new one looks more traditional.

I still have one more silk painting to finish that has the resist on it.  I'll probably work on that one this week since I'm trying to clean up my studio and the best way to do that is to finish some of my many unfinished projects.

Silky Bougainvillea
Image Size 13.5" x 24.5"
Silk dyes on silk

Silk Clivia II - Silk Painting

This is the silk painting that I was using as a demo piece on Saturday.  I finished painting it today but it hasn't been steamed or stretched yet which is why it looks wrinkled.  Also, the white lines will be brighter once the resist is washed out.  At least I finished painting it.  : )  

This is a design I have painted before but the first one didn't have a border.  I'll post the first painting at the end of this post.  This one also has lighter flowers.

These flowers are Clivias, also known as Kaffir lilies.  Typically they are orange but a few years ago I saw some pale yellow ones that I had to have.  They are a lot harder to find than the orange ones. The yellow is such a soft yellow for the garden.  Usually yellow flowers are pretty bright.

I was so happy when I finished painting this without having any bloopers.  I was really nervous painting the black.  It's really easy to flick the dye while lifting the brush and have it go in the worst places.  That would have ruined the whole painting if black had gotten on the flowers or leaves.  Originally, I painted the border a flat green.  The flowers are so delicate that I didn't want a busy border to clash with that.  After painting the border, it looked really blah to me so I held my breath as I added a different color.  

When a color is added over an already painted area, the underneath color is activated enough to cause hard lines very quickly so it's impossible to get a smooth color wash.  The effect is actually pretty cool but it would be hard to control the effect on a border because I have to start in one spot and switch off painting in both directions so that the dye doesn't dry and create an even harder edge.  I added salt as I painted to create a more overall texture.  I'm actually very happy with it.  The salt drew the color that I added (brown) but didn't lift the original color (green) so the color mix is really pretty.

Below is this painting with the green border before I added the brown and salt.

And here is the original silk clivia painting I did a couple of years ago.  After I steamed it and washed it, I noticed a white area (you can see it in this photo in the lower left corner area) in the black background so I repainted it and re-steamed it.  I learned a lesson.  The black and oranges bled in a couple of areas so even though most people think it looks fine, I could never sell it so I've always intended to re-paint is because I really like the design.  This photo was taken before I re-steamed it so you can't see the color bleed. 

Which of the three versions do you like best?

Silk Clivias II

Image Size 22" x 22"

Silk dyes on silk

Peter's Canyon - Silk Painting

I'm going to enter this silk painting in a local juried show in a couple of weeks.  If it gets selected, it will hang in Chemers Gallery in Tustin for two weeks.  If you are an artist living around Orange County, CA, you still have time to enter the competition.  Go to tustinart.blogspot.com to get the information and entry form.  The painting has to be a scene from Tustin, North Tustin or Peter's Canyon to be eligible.  The entry form and fees are due April 16th and the artwork is to be delivered between April 20th to 23rd for judging.  How it is framed is very important.  It needs to be a plain black or dark stained color frame.  If you have any doubts, take the frame into the gallery for an okay.

I have one more painting I want to do for this show so hopefully it will be done by next week.  It will probably be an oil painting but might be another silk painting.  I like to enter silks into this show because the judging is separated between amateur and professional rather than by medium.  Nobody ever knows into which category the silk paintings belong.  They usually get put into general (if there is that category) or mixed media ( which it's not).  To me, it seems like they belong in the watercolor/water media category because the dyes are water soluble but I've never had anyone agree with me on that.  What do you think?

Peter's Canyon

Image Size 21.5" x 31"

Silk dyes on silk

Ready For Harvest

I had to have a silk painting fix.  I enjoy painting on silk so much and miss it if I go too long without doing it.  I love the graphic quality of it.  This is the second silk painting of grapes that I've done.  They are really fun to paint and they bring back happy memories of visits to the wine country.

Ready For Harvest
Image Size 10" x 16"
Silk dyes on silk

Silk Coconuts - Silk Painting

Here is a silk painting that I did this week.  It is 25" x 25" and can be worn as a scarf (the edges are sewn) or my intention was to stretch it and frame it as I do with most of my silk paintings.  I took WIP pictures of this and made a Flikr slideshow from it.  You can see them by visiting their site here.  This silk hasn't been steamed yet.  The colors will become more intense after steaming.
By the way, if any of you know how to get a Flikr slideshow to play on a blog, please let me know.  I would be much happier if the pictures were here rather than having to send people to their site.


Also this week, I was thrilled to receive 1st place in watercolor at the annual Tustin Art League member show for 'Wavering Muse' which is shown below.

I posted her a few months ago.  Even though she's a bit crazy, this is one of my favorite paintings and it was really fun and challenging to paint.

Farmer's Market - Silk Painting

This is another silk painting that I painted to enter in the "Live and Play in Tustin" show. I should know soon if they got into the show. I almost didn't enter this year. The theme really stumped me because it seems like you really need to have a person in the painting that is showing the living and playing in Tustin. Well, I don't like painting people. I made a couple of attempts and then decided to skip the show this year. After talking with the gallery owner, I decided to make a last attempt and I'm glad I did. I'm pretty happy with both of them. I like the way they look framed. Silk paintings are always so fresh and happy looking to me.

Farmer's Market
Image Size 15" x 15"
Silk Dyes on Silk
Framed
$350.00

Pink Plumeria - Silk Painting

This is my 100th blog post! That doesn't really mean anything except that 100 of anything seems like is should be some kind of milestone. It doesn't seem like I've posted that many paintings. I look forward to Mondays and each new post. Some weeks it's been a little stressful to get a painting finished in time but knowing that Monday is looming has kept me on task and motivated.

Had I known in advance about this momentous occasion I would have tried to paint something more unusual and thought provoking but this is what you get. I'm back in my tropical mode and this is a silk painting. I love plumeria and even though the flowers that are this color don't have as strong a scent as the white ones do, the intensity of their color screams 'tropical' to me. And besides, does the scent really matter in a painting?

Pink Plumeria

Image Size 17" x 17"

Silk Dyes on Silk
Unframed
$275.00

Cyber Cafe - Silk Painting

I've found so many places I want to paint while virtually visiting Corsica, so I've taken the challenge again. I decided to make this one more fanciful so I chose Silk dyes on silk as my medium. When I found this scene, I was attracted to the laundry hanging between the windows. I don't know why I find that so appealing. Laundry is not at all appealing when I see it in our house. It's funny how something becomes charming when it's in another culture. Oh well, I guess I should be happy that I have a clothes dryer and don't have to hang my laundry to dry. I've included my reference photo below so that you can see that I went crazy employing artistic license with this one. I re-built the building, added plants and changed the colors on the building and shutters. I wonder if it can still be considered a reference photo.

I have one more Corsica painting in the works that I will hopefully finish this week.

Cyber Cafe

Image size 16" x 16"

Framed
Sold

Silk Clivias - Silk Painting

Aaahhh...I'm back to silk painting. I haven't painted on silk since August. Silk painting is like a drug and if I go too long without doing it, I start having withdrawal symptoms. I'm making up for the hiatus this week. So far, I've finished this one, painted two freeform scarves 14" x 72" and have put the resist on another silk that is the same size as this one.

My intention when I started this painting was to do a background that had leaves painted without resist so that they would be fuzzy and give a sense of foreground and background but after painting the flowers and leaves I felt that giving it a plain black background would give it a dramatic, more graphic quality. Once I had that in my mind, I knew that if I tried to do the dimensional looking background I would probably mess it up because my heart wasn't into it any longer. I was also afraid to use the black because my resist lines on this were really thin because my bottle of resist was almost gone and it was a little thicker than usual and I used a really small tip to apply it. Usually that means that I'm going to have lots of places where the resist didn't fully penetrate the fabric and the dyes will break through. The scarf would have been ruined if the black broke into the yellow flowers. Also, sometimes when steaming the silk after it's painted, the dyes migrate to places where they shouldn't be. I was lucky neither of those things happened and I'm very happy with the finished piece. This can be worn as a scarf but I like to frame the square silks because I have so much labor into them and they look really good hanging on the wall. Some of the tactile beauty of the silk is lost behind the glass but I use the glass because I want them to be protected.

Silk Clivias

Image Size 21" x 21"

Silk dyes on silk

Unframed
$425.00

Silk Mandalas

I'm organizing my studio and of course it looks worse right now than before I started. Every flat surface is covered and I barely found room to work on these 6" silk mandalas. I found 6 of these pre-stretched silk circles amongst my stuff and thought making mandalas would be a good way to use them. I've always loved patterns and repetitions of color. Probably my 20 years of making stained glass windows has something to do with being attracted to them. I'm intrigued by how different the colors look on both of these. They are exactly the same colors and intensity and the resist lines are the only difference. The one on right looks like it was painted with much lighter colors, doesn't it? I love optical illusions.

I would love to hear whether you prefer the black or white resist lines.

Silk Mandalas
Image Size 6"
Silk dyes on silk

Silk Fuchsia - Silk Painting

This is the silk painting that was supposed to be last week's post. I added more color and am happy with it now. This is on a beautiful piece of silk satin which has a really nice sheen to it but I think I will go back to my silk habotai for future work. The resist doesn't penetrate this fabric as easily.

Silk Fuchsia
Image Size 21" x 21"
Silk dyes on Silk
Unframed

Burano, Italy - Silk Painting

We went to Venice, Italy a few years ago and Burano is an island off of the coast there. I was amazed that it was so different from Venice. The buildings are all painted bright colors there and not a gondola in sight. I thought that silk dyes on silk would be a good medium to try for this picture. I may also do it in oil later.

Burano, Italy
Image size 20" x 16"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed
$400.00

Florence Flowers

This is painted from a picture I took several years ago in Florence, Italy. I love how they have little pots of flowers in so many of their windows. It was fun to try to get the effect of the old chipping wall with the silk dyes.

Florence Flowers
Image size 19.5 x 15.5"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed
$375.00

Yellow Silk Rose

This is another silk painting. I'm enjoying using this medium again so you will probably see a lot of them in the coming weeks.

Yellow Silk Rose
Image Size 8" x 10"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed