Silks and Art by Jill: 2014

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Shibori, Resist, Tinfix Experiment

This was another experiment at a Silk Retreat. First we twist-wrapped the silk on a tube and dunked it into boiling dye. That is the Shibori technique. Then I stretched the silk and looked at the fine lines left by the twist, and drew complementary resist lines. That was then painted with TinFix dyes. I overpainted the white left by the Shibori technique, too. This is a close up of the 11 x 60" silk. It is fun and wearable. I think it would be fun on a hat! $50.00

Demo Piece for Paste Painting Technique

When I was at a Silk Retreat in Grand Junction, CO I shared how I used thickened dyes to color the silks in my paste paper technique. This one is a little wild, but you know I love color. 11 x 60" $40.00

Perception

The word Perception is written through the middle three times. From there I built the rest of the design. Around the edges I have comments about how we perceive life. I am using a copper metallic resist. 11x60" $90.00

Two More Paste Paper Style Silks

I am using thickened dyes on 11 x 60" silks. The first one was done with Red Label Jacquard and steamed for only an hour, so I over dyed it with more Tinfix yellow and then steamed for 3 hours. It came out much prettier. $40.00 Oops, second one is Sold.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Tangle Fun

I had an earlier version of this complicated, detailed silk on my Jill's Quills 2014 calendar and wanted to make another because someone was excited by the design. I barely had it finished and it was sold. Wow.

Tranquillity

I started this silk with the word Tranquillity written largely down the middle. Around the border I added some philosophy about how to achieve tranquillity and added the cartoon flowers. This silk is very springy, yet goes with any blues or purples. $80.00

Purple, Blue, Yellow Colors with Salt

Just Colors, Purples, Blues, Yellows with some salt action. $40.00 A little philosophy by Mr. Rogers is around the border.

No Resist Flower Shapes

I am just carefully adding dyes, no resists are used to contain the design, and we end up with the springy, flowery silk. A light resist quote is around the border. $40.00

CUT GLASS SILK

Remember when Mom made a dessert called 'Cut Glass'. It was many flavors of jello, cut into cubes, then molded into a cake shape by lemon and whipped cream, I think. Anyway, this silk makes me think of that dessert. It has no resist and is just so much fun. $50.

JANAS CLASS SILK

This is an experiment and a class story. Jan Janas was our teacher on April 22 and 23. Jan is a dynamic teacher and artist and she devised a plan to get us out of our 'comfort zone'. We started with 4 1"x1" squares(clipped from magazines) which we drew in the abstract. We chose our favorite and enlarged it to a 4"x 4" square. We shaded that, then cut it into strips and redrew our design. From there we took small sample pieces of silk and using different techniques, painted the design. The second day we took a 35"x35" silk and made the large design, modifying as we went. The top two photos are the end result and it is already SOLD.

BIG Tangles

Fun, springy colors with tangles that are larger. I love the color combinations. SOLD

Sea Dragon in Coral

Yes, another Sea Dragon. This is an experiment with a 'watery look' and the coral is made with thickened dyes and then outlined loosely with NeoOpaque (which isn't shown). $80.00

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Bacon Silk (joke)

At Christmas, my family was here and my grandson saw a silk on the stretcher. I had just painted a background that, to me, looked like a sunset. He saw a very large piece of bacon. After he said that that is all I could see too. So I added some quills, the alphabet, and finally a dark red on top with salt.
It now can be worn with my new red jacket. 11x60" Sold.

Silks and Art by Jill