Me and my ‘almost’ finished mandala
(for this months full moon! will post more on 31st)

What a fabulous weekend! I spend all day Saturday and Sunday with Master Silk Painter Sissi Siska, learning all about painting on silk and her different techniques and materials!

Sissi working on one of her pieces.

My first atempt at drawing with the resist and using the dyes.

My first piece was a great way to test out the dyes and get to know how the fabric worked with the color. So I just doodled and picked some of the colors I liked the most (pink of course!)

I used a resist to create the lines and then literally dropped the dye using my brush on the fabric and it immediately spread to the edges of the resist. Such a pleasure to work with.

I then had some fun playing with salt to create some interesting reactions with the dye. I had rock salt and kosha salt and when applied to the dye when wet, created some fabulous imagery on the silk. We also played with wax and creating “crumpled” effects which was fun too (I LOVE wax).

Day 2, I went a little wilder! and decided to create my Mandala for this months full moon, then also have a go at literally painting the fabric with the resist, dyes, alcohol and salt. It was a lot of fun to use the silk like a canvas and see what patterns, textures and images emerged through the silk.

Sissi then wrapped our work into newsprint paper and put into the steamer to set everything in the fabric.

So much more to try out and 2 days was definitely not enough to do everything so cant wait to learn more and see what other lovely images I can create.

Sissi is an internationally acclaimed Silk Painter and is so much fun to take a workshop with. She runs workshops all over the world and has one planned again at her main studio in Hoboken, NJ. Sign up to her facebook page for news of upcoming events (like the open studio in November) and another fab workshop planned in January 2013.

Pop back on the 31st where I’ll share more of my mandala and the different processes I used for the piece and I’ll also be offering a few mini silk paintings for sale later this week. 🙂