Evi’s Silk Painting Class

I’ve been looking for a class that I could take that would push me out of my comfort zone. I found that in Evi’s Silk Painting Class.

When I take classes I not only learn new things, but recognize even more things about me. In this class I recognized that I am really into control. You’d think with the ice dyeing (little control) and marbling (little control) I’d be okay with NO control. Well, with silk painting there is no control. The dyes just do what they want. It’s a lot like herding cats.

In our first class we painted a scarf. Here is mine.

My first painted silk scarf
My first painted silk scarf

In the second class, we learned two lessons. The first was to paint each dye color in squares she had drawn on the silk. Sounds easy, but we are not using any resist. So this taught us how to attempt to control the dye. This was a very challenging exercise!

Painting on silk

Here is how it looked when I finished. We numbered all of the colors for a quick reference – really a great idea.

Silk Dye Colors
Silk Dye Colors

Here is Evi showing Mary Beth.

Evi and Mary Beth

And Mary Beth- her scarf was almost perfect. She’s also a much faster painter than I am!

Mary Beth
Mary Beth

For our second lesson in that second session we painted on two scarves: one was wet and the other was dry. Evi wanted us to try to paint the exact same strokes so we could see the difference. Well, painting on dry I have no control; on wet a little.

Dry and wet scarves
Dry and wet scarves

Now, we’re not done with those. This past week we painted over them. I’ll show you those results when I get them back next week.

Also this week we painted scarves using fabric wax crayons. They acted as resists so I had control. Yeah!

For the next session I’ll be bringing in some of my wood printing blocks and my gelli arts plate, and we’ll also play with another resist. I am really looking forward to that session – much more in my comfort zone.

Evi Slaby not only is a talented artist, but a patient teacher. For more information on Evi and her art, check out her website here. If you are local and want to play with silks and dyes, Evi is teaching a free silk painting class where all of the painted scarves will be donated to chemo patients. Information is on her website.

I am really looking forward to our next class.

Have a great weekend!