Silk painting

Painting on silk is done with specialist silk paints, which are more expensive than some other kinds of fabric paint. Silk paints create subtle, gleaming colours that look as good when expertly applied as their expensive price would suggest.

Silk painting allows you to create beautiful effects. There are numerous ways of applying the paint, which leads on to various effects that can be achieved. Before starting to paint on silk it is important that the silk is stretched in a hoop or frame to give you the best results.

To see some examples of Silk painting work click here.

Now try it out!

The best way to begin silk painting is by trial and error, although if you find your mistakes are proving too expensive, it might be a good idea to find a local class that you could join.

When paint is applied to the silk, the paint spreads across the fabric, so in order to contain the paint within an area, the area needs to be outlined using gutter outliner. Try achieving different effects. You might want the colour to run and give a hazy mist of colours. To achieve a mottled effect on your silk painting, sprinkle salt on to the wet paint and leave it to dry.