New Coffee and Donut Scarf

Video of the making of my coffee and donut scarf. I made this scarf because its funny. It is a conversation piece. A little ecclectic and who doesn't like coffee and donuts? I will be putting it on ebay, happy to say I made a pair of matching donut earrings.

New leopard scarf

 I got a new silk frame and you can see the push pins on the silk.

This scarf is now ready, I just steamed it. The combination of orange and blue are great.

Where can I buy your artwork?

I sell my art in two places Etsy and my website.

Etsy Store


Shaylati

Hand painted silk scarves with matching earrings!

A portion of all my silk painting sales go to Corazon De Vida Orphanage

 Hanging out with the kids doing arts and crafts.

I went to this orphanage in May 2011 and visited the kids. There were 90 children there and 2 caretakers. Amazing. The children were great. Very friendly. This was my second visit to an orphanage in Mexico. This is really a great charity founded by someone who was an orphan herself. They organize monthly visits to Tijuana for volunteers. You can sponser a child each month.

What kinds of techniques are there for silk painting?

1)Gutta: A sticky subtance kind of like rubber cement that comes in gold, silver black or clear. Can be a real challenge to clean up, think of glue drying.

 Bottle for applying gutta

Gutta outline on silk.

 Starting with yellow then red

 Adding blue

2) No Flow

No flow is painted on the silk to make the silk more like paper so you can paint details. If you don't use no flow or gutta,  all silk painting has a watercolor effect because the dye moves very fast. Think of how water moves on a paper towel, very similar to silk painting.
3) Salt

Salt is sprinkled onto the silk to absorb dye and create interesting landscape.

Close up of my new Sassy Flowers Scarf

Using salt and primary colors to paint silk

I wanted to share a new scarf using lines and salt. I started with yellow lines, as I always like to start with light colors and add darker ones and the light ones dry because you cant remove a dark color. It is a lot of fun to watch the colors mix on the silk. I bought some epsom salts and sprinkled them across the silk.

I also wanted to share my silk frame which is essential to painting. If you don't have a frame, the dye gets everywhere below the silk and will be a large mess. This frame is made for pvc pipe which cost a few dollars at Lowes (like Home Depot). Pvc pipe is very easy to cut with a wood saw which took me a couple minutes. I am a petite person, so I think anyone could do this! I got some other pieces to connect the pipe. Then I put rubber bands and safety pins. I am going to try this frame for awhile and see how it works out.

Why did I choose to paint silk?

I supposed it naturally happened as a result of my years of watercolor experience and my love of scarves. I can't remember how I stumbled on silk painting, I ended up at http://www.dharmatrading.com/ which supplies all kinds of silk and dyes. I bought a kit from Jaquard and some scarves. In conjuction I found a nice online community to read about techniques and a talented youtube artist, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEF0eBtCIEQ&feature=related. Jean Babtiste is a very skilled artist as well, very detailed work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVMbAco81-Y&feature=related .

I am in the beginning stages but I have found that most scarves I have made are very beautiful with such great colors. Also, the color moves so fast on silk, much faster than water color. I added a little alcohol to the dye to slow it down and that helped a lot.

I am going to try the black gutta to see how that turns out.