Hand-painted Tropical Leaf Silk Scarf with Varied Greens on Blue Background

Tropical Leaf Silk Scarf in Varied Greens on Blue Background

     The idea of painting a design of tropical leaves on a silk scarf has been in the back of my mind for awhile. Recently, I completed this 60" x 11" scarf in blue and varied green hues after a number of sketches finally resulted in a design I liked. I blended several shades and hues of green for the leaves, because I wanted to make the scarf more useful, more likely to look nice with different outfits. The leaf designs were inspired by photos of plants in some of my husband's botanical books and from direct observation of plants in our coastal north Florida neighborhoods.

One end of tropical leaf scarf

     I don't know why I draped the scarf on this old couch for its photos, but have decided it doesn't look too bad there. The final steps to finish the work-- steam-setting the dyes, removing the gutta outlines in a naphtha soak, washing and pressing--are not yet done. However, I thought you might like a look at it anyway.

Other end of tropical leaf scarf

     All the colors, including the blue background, are blends of liquid French silk dyes. I love experimenting with colors and color combinations and am rarely disappointed with the results of the blends I've planned--although it can take some "tinkering" to get the shade where I want it. 

     I painted a very light, watered-down blue on the entire white scarf blank first, then outlined all the leaves and stems with gutta resist (more information on using gutta in the third paragraph of this post). That way, the outlines have some color, rather than just being white. The lighter leaves are a pale green painted over with yellow (which tends to push other colors away and creates a nice variegation in hues). The large philodendron leaf is several layers of olive. The smaller vine leaves are a blend of greens, again layered until the depth of color seemed right. The heart-shaped larger vine leaves are a blend of green and blue. I gave each of the leaves one coat before "drawing" the veins with gutta resist; that way the veins would have more color, rather than just retaining the light blue of the first coat of the background. Last, I finished the final coat or two of the blue background, randomly stroking a true blue over aqua, then blending them for a watery, varied appearance. Now this will join a couple of other scarves in the studio closet until I have enough for a steamer batch to set the dyes.

Question of the Day: What sort of scarf design would you like me to try next?

When Art Projects Go Wrong--Silk Scarf Mistake

     Recently, a silk scarf I was working on took a bad turn. All artists (I imagine) experience this on occasion with a project. Sometimes, there is a way to fix the situation and move on; sometimes it cannot be saved. In this case, I  could not fix the mistake, but was able to make the not-quite-ruined scarf reusable.

First stage--the background

Background from the other end

     The two photos of a scarf on a stretcher show the intended background for the piece. Painting wet-on-wet on a blank white scarf, I had made a shadowed pale aqua and blue ground on which I planned to paint large tropical leaves in various green hues. My original patterns--see photo of the design for one end of the scarf--were already sketched on heavy paper. The next step was to "draw" the design outlines on the scarf with gutta, a rubber-based resist. That's when it went wrong.

Design outline for one end of the scarf

The gutta and applicator 

     The gutta is applied with a small squeeze bottle through a metal tip with a small opening (see photo). The metal tips come in various sizes, and I think my mistake was using one with a medium opening at the top (it's still really tiny). The gutta flowed too fast and puddled, covering areas I intended to leave open. Every area covered with gutta would resist the French silk dyes and remain the background color. Using the metal tip with the smallest opening would have produced a thinner line of gutta and may have prevented the mess I ended up with. In some designs, this would not have mattered much; the design simply would have looked a bit different from what I'd intended. In this case, the leafy fronds on the left would have had undesirable aqua patches.

The gutta outlines, with messy overflow

     Even when the gutta is still wet, it cannot be wiped off, so I let the piece dry. What to do? I decided to start over and used the same dye blends in the same concentration as in the first scarf (glad I keep notes on my colors). Making no effort to duplicate the original background, I painted on the pale aqua and swirled in some blue. If all goes well this time, I hope to post the new, corrected version in the future.

Close-up of the messiest area

     Once all dye has been painted on, the finishing steps for a scarf (when using French silk dyes) are: steam setting the piece for an hour or more (I do several at once), soaking any scarves with gutta in naphtha to remove the resist (dry cleaning also works), then washing and pressing the scarves. 

     As an experiment, I soaked the original scarf in naphtha even though the dyes were not set. What's the worst that can happen?, I thought--the color will wash out or drastically fade, but the scarf might be reusable for another project. To my surprise, the color faded much less than expected. Now, I have two versions of an aqua/blue medley background to work with. Stay tuned.

Question of the day: Along with success stories, isn't it sometimes helpful to hear about a day that things went wrong for someone else?