Silk Painting

Silk painting creates beautiful results with or without using a resist.  For these pieces, I used a water-based resist that would wash out later.  Silk needs to be pretreated with professional textile detergent and can be dried normally.  Then, your fabric needs to be suspended and stretched in some way so the paint will not puddle under your design.  These pieces were painted using the "serti" technique, which uses the resist to keep the paint in certain areas of your design.  Resists come in different colors, but for these pieces, I used a clear resist that would prevent the paint from crossing the line and would remain the original color of the silk, white.  After the resist is completely dry, you can begin to paint.  Wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry are watercolor painting techniques that can be used for silk painting as well.  You can also sprinkle salt onto wet paint to create an effect.  Silk must be steamed for one hour to set the paint before it is used for a decoration or put in the washing machine to wash out the resist.