About me

Modern hand painting Silk Art

Is getting more known and appreciated in around the world. However, very few people knows how it is made.

Brief History of Silk

Modern hand painting Silk Art is getting more known and appreciated in America. However, very few people knows how it is made. Therefore, I would like to briefly explain about the History of Silk, how Silk painting started and how I developed my own techniques based on an antique Chinese sizing resist technique from about 700 BC.

Silk Art started in China about 5 thousands years ago. As many inventions, Silk was discovered by chance. The Chinese recognize its discovery to empress Xi Ling Shi, known as Leizu. She was taking her tea out in her garden and a cocoon fell into her hot cup. She observed and got fascinated by the threads of Silk coming out of the cocoon. Later, she learned by herself how to weave those threads and thought her servants how to weave and turned them into a soft raw Silk fabric. For this, the Chinese named her the Goddess of Silk Weaving, since the 27th Century BC.

My beginnings.

As a lover of Art, I started to do textile paintings and Batik using wax on cotton. During my researches about Batik, I found the Art of Chinese and Japanese hand silk paintings. I noticed in many of these silk paintings the use of a liner called guta or line resist with the purpose to prevent the dyes to mix with each other and invade other colored areas. Afterwards, I started my  first silk hand paintings and silk dyes using guta lines like the blue/purple painting below.

Here I found out at the beginning of hand silk painting around 700 BC, artist used raw Silk, dyes made from minerals and vegetables, sumi hair brushes without gutta lines!. But, to paint without gutta lines, they primed the porous raw Silk with a mix of gelatine and Alum, now known as sizing . Gelatin covered the porous of the raw silk and Alum, which is a mordant, was used to set the dyes into the Silk without steaming. However, no information was shown about a formula.

With my excitement about these foundings, I was in front of another challenge. To  find a formula of mixing gelatin and Alum. Through a lot of experiments with different combinations of gelatin and Alum along with the use of modern Habotai Silk, steam dyes and brushes, I finally found my own formula mixing the gelatin and the Alum! as a sizing or resist. But, my own formula was not enough. I also needed painting techniques that works with this formula. So, through different experiments again, I finally was able to paint on Silk without gutta lines by combining my primer with these painting techniques: Free Flow, Underpainting and dry-brush painting techniques. After more than 10 years of Silk hand painting, I can now master the most difficult technique to hand paint on Silk without gutta lines and using steaming as a process to set the steam dyes that I use.

Brief History of Silk

Modern hand painting Silk Art is getting more known and appreciated in America. However, very few people knows how it is made. Therefore, I would like to briefly explain about the History of Silk, how Silk painting started and how I developed my own techniques.

Silk Art started in China about 5 thousands years ago. As many inventions, Silk was discovered by chance. The Chinese recognize its discovery to empress Xi Ling Shi, known as Leizu. She was taking her tea out in her garden and a cocoon fell into her hot cup. She observed and got fascinated by the threads of Silk coming out of the cocoon. Later, she learned by herself how to weave those threads and thought her servants how to weave and turned them into a soft raw Silk fabric. For this, the Chinese named her the Goddess of Silk Weaving, since the 27th Century BC.

My beginnings.

As a lover of Art, I started to do textile paintings and Batik using wax on cotton. During my researches about Batik, I found the Art of Chinese and Japanese hand silk paintings. I noticed in many of these silk paintings the use of a liner called guta or line resist with the purpose to prevent the dyes to mix with each other and invade other colored areas. Afterwards, I started my  first silk hand paintings and silk dyes using guta lines like the blue/purple painting.

Here I found out at the beginning of hand silk painting around 700 BC, artist used raw Silk, dyes made from minerals and vegetables, sumi hair brushes without gutta lines!. But, to paint without gutta lines, they primed the porous raw Silk with a mix of gelatine and Alum, now known as sizing . Gelatin covered the porous of the raw silk and Alum, which is a mordant, was used to set the dyes into the Silk without steaming. However, no information was shown about a formula.

My paintings are for decoration and I mount them on stretched canvas with a UV Varnish to protect them from the environment; as I learned from Karen Systek, a professional Silk painter.