Starting a new silk painting - this time it's a collaborative piece (oh my)!

The Laundry Line (to be a collaborative piece)
Yes, that's right... I'm starting a new painting.  It's to be part of a collaborative piece done with 3 other artists (well 9 others actually) from the Fiber 19 Artist Group.  

A picture was selected (The Laundry Line), it was decided that each completed picture would be sized 4 feet wide by 3 feet tall... and that the picture would be divided into 4 slices (with each 4th being 1 foot wide and 3 feet tall).  Names were randomly selected and assigned to a section/slice of the picture.  AND I (stupidly) in my infinite wisdom, signed up to do 2 slices so that there would be 3 whole, completed sets made.  

Each artist is to interpret their assigned piece in their preferred medium.  Although certain marks must line up (the clothes line and the wood), the colors and medium are up to each artist.  It should be very interesting to see the end-results!  We have weavers, painters, quilters, collage-artists, and free-motion sewing artists, just to name a few of the types.



Slices 3 and 4 hung on my display board
(which is actually my daughter's old closet
door with rollers on the bottom!)



I ended up with slices 3 and 4.  Since I paint on recycled silk, my slices will both be silk paintings.  I'm going to paint slice 4 in the traditional serti technique - using Resistad colored with black dye...which will (hopefully) give the appearance of stained glass.  I will then paint slice 3 on silk, using the modern Sistek/Magic-Sizing method (which is a stop-flow method, used with little or no resists).  

I've started on slice 4 and am already experiencing some technical difficulties.  Darn it.   

My test sample - that's not a water
mark, that's black dye bleeding out!
I used Jacquard Red Label (black) dye to color my Resistad.  And while the resist-lines seem to hold back water just fine... the lines themselves are bleeding.  I heat-sat them and then did it two more times to no avail.  The lines still bled.  

So then I did a bit of research and troubleshooting and was advised to steam-set the lines - which would then bond the dye to the silks.  So I did... to no avail.  The lines still bleed.  (picture me pulling my hair and getting SERIOUSLY pissed!!).  
My resist lines on
silk

SO now,  well now I'm taking a break because I'm mad at the darned resist lines.   I did decide that I don't need to be a purist about the slice I'm working on, so I will paint it (and pray the black lines don't bleed too much) - and then I will do a bit of corrective interpretation with acrylic paints once the painting has been mounted on canvas. 



FYI, this particular piece of silk used to be the leg of a pair of pajamas.
(finding used, recycled, or remnant silks in this big of a size, with no seams or other issues...is darned hard!). 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If You Grew Up Near Renton Washington, Maybe You'd Remember This!

So You Want To Make Your Own Vertical Stovepipe Steamer?

So you're thinking of making your own World Globe Bowl or Lampshade?