Sewing with a Plan 2015 0.22 – painting on silk

posted in: Fabric printing | 11

This week I have been experimenting with making the fabric for my silk dress. I have two ideas going on at present, and I am not sure which one I want to use for the SWAP – the light, colourful flowers versus the dark, dripping damask.  I will probably make up both dresses as they appeal to different aspects of my personality – I will decide which one to include in the SWAP later this month.

I already posted my dripping damask experiments, inspired by Alexander McQueen. I would like to produce a similar effect on heavyweight navy silk (ex Nicole Farhi) that I got at Simply Fabrics. I am currently considering how to transfer the design to such a thick, dark fabric (holding it up to the window, even though we have quite a lot of sun at the moment doesn’t help Stephanie. And light boxes do not have powerful enough light, unfortunately. I am thinking stencil?).

My second experiment involves painting large flowers on white crepe silk using hot wax batik and brightly coloured silk paint. This is something I have already done a few times befroe, but usually for linings. Where you can see a greyish, slightly shiny effect this is the cooled wax. This is so that part of the pattern will remain white. The red speckles on top of the wax are caused by me daubing the paint on willy-nilly. When the wax is ironed out these little particles of paint absorb into the silk creating a nice effect.

pink flowers painted on white silk
Painting pink flowers

To be honest I had meant to paint the pink flowers, add some green leaves, then paint hot wax over them to protect them, then imerse the fabric in a vat of dark grey dye. This would help bring the design into the SWAP, which has bright and deep shades in it.  But I got a bit carried away and painted the background with a turquoise-blue background instead. Again you can see how the green paint sits on the surface. I made one fairly large piece that I could use as a skirt section if I decided to go with this colourway and effect. I liked the way the blue and pink complemented each other, with the touches of green and yellow. I really like this colour combination. The variations in the colour of the red/pink for example is created simply by dilution of the one shade of red. The green is mixed from blue and yellow. It is a very simple, very satisfying process. I like painting but I don’t like getting things exact, and I am just too messy and expressive to plan out where the flowers are going, or their size or relation to each other. I could certainly get a better, more balanced arrangement if I planned a bit more, but if I planned it and it went wrong I would be disappointed. So I like this loose style approach, somewhat instinctive where the finished fabric (and garment) is full of happy accidents.

silk painting - roses
Applying the background colour

Once the silk paint dries (very quickly) it is just a matter of applying a hot iron on top of newspaper or any slightly absorbent paper. You need to put lots of newspaper underneath too, to protect your ironing board.

Batik - ironing out wax
Ironing out the wax

After pressing the fabric I put it in the washing machine to remove the remaining wax staining. I don’t have enough for a dress here, so if I go with this for the SWAP I need to make a second piece. That is slightly challenging as it is hard to keep the colour ways similar, which Is why I try to use them straight out of the jar rather than mixing custom colours each time. Also I adore bright floral patterns  – as you can see I was wearing my 2015 SWAP skirt, with last year’s SWAP floral cardigan. When you have a consistent cool-bright palette everything goes with everything (not sure about the slippers though).

Have you ever done batik? I just love the warmth, smell and feel of the hot wax. It is such simple but effective technology. It’s a little bit unstructured, in a good way, but you can get very precise results with it if you really want to.

 

11 Responses

    • fabrickated

      I would so love to see you Mrs Mole if you do fly over some time. Let me know and we can have a creative workshop!

  1. Stephanie

    That’s too bad about the window/light box, K. The stencil idea would work, even though that’s more work for you. These are such lovely projects/ideas. I love the floral silk – looks like peonies, to me, which is such a wonderful design for spring/summer. You’re too good! I know I’ve done some crude batik before but I can’t remember where. I almost think it was at summer camp.

    • fabrickated

      Summer camp! And thank you for mentioning peonies – yes that is probably what they are. I think I have peonies, roses and Rennie Macintosh on my mind.

  2. Galina

    The fabric is looking gorgeous Kate. Love the idea of loosing control and your free hand design and the positive energy beaming from every flower:)

  3. Lesley Scott

    So pretty those colours Kate. I recall I was diagnosed soft muted and as the weather has cooled I’ve fallen back into grey and white everything – like a black and white movie! I did venture into wax resist back in the dark ages. It was done on tough old calico and of course sat in the stash waiting to be thrown out years later.

    • fabrickated

      Soft and muted mean the same thing – I can’t say for sure as its not easy to tell from blog pictures but I am not sure about that. White would imply brighter and grey – well there is a grey for everyone. Batik on silk is so sensuous and makes great blouses and dresses – I am sure it would be nice in your fantastic climate.

  4. Kbenco

    Making your own fabric is so inspiring. I love both of them, but admit to instantly wanting to copy the dripping damask.
    I am also very impressed with your storyboard – so organised!

  5. Alli

    Those pink flowers are super cute! I have to admit that I was excited when I read that you had planned to make the background grey (I love me some grey), but the bright blue background is so happy that I like it, too. 🙂

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