Purple Tulips on Blue Background, a Hand-painted Silk Scarf

Blue hand-painted silk scarf with purple tulips

     Newly completed, this 11" x 60" hand-painted silk scarf features purple and purple-variegated tulips on a rich medium blue background. The clear green leaves add even more versatility in terms of coordinating it with various outfits.

     For those of you who are interested, I'll outline the steps of the painting process for this scarf next.

     After some careful study of tulip photos in botanical books and referring to some outline drawings (free for anyone on the Internet), I drew my own outline designs of stands of tulips on heavy paper in the exact size of the intended scarf designs--one for each end of the scarf. Then, using the drawings as a guide, I "drew" onto the scarf with a small squeeze bottle of gutta--not an easy process (see more about gutta below). The blank white scarf is stretched on a frame while I work on it.

Closer detail of one end

Closer detail of the other end

     Once the gutta dried, I painted the first layer of color in the outlines of the leaves and the solid purple tulips. Next came gutta-drawn details inside the outlines (to divide the individual tulip petals and the various leaves from each other). Then I added further layers of color to deepen the tones, shade some areas, and differentiate the details (the French silk dyes I use stay semi-transparent up to 6 or 7 layers of color). The variegated tulips required smaller strokes of color which were then blended out with a water-soaked brush.

A different view of the scarf

     In these photos you see the scarf completed up to that point. The final steps will take several more hours of work. I will wrap this and four other hand-painted scarves in separate layers in heavy newsprint (very carefully to avoid steam-set creases) for an hour or more of deep steaming to set the dyes. 

     Then I'll remove the gutta resist that outlines the design. Gutta (a rubber based resist) protects a design or separates areas from each other, preventing colors from running together. It can only be removed by dry cleaning or (what I do) soaking in a jar with naphtha. Finally, I'll wash the scarves in a special, gentle liquid soap, dry, and press them. Whew--one-of-a-kind, hand-painted silk scarves ready for someone to wear.

Question of the day: There are many styles of blog posts. Mine combine photos and a fair amount of text. Are you a blog visitor who prefers to look at photos quickly and maybe a sentence or two, or do you enjoy more text for the times you are interested in some explanation?