My sad attempt at Silk Painting.

As part of the training program at Hobbycraft, we were asked to investigate a craft we had never done before, and do it.  (Yep, we actually get paid for this!!)

For most people this might be an easy task, for me the hard bit was finding a craft I had not already had a go at!

After a good hunt around the Hobbycraft store in Stockton I came across a Silk Painting Card Kit.  Looked interesting, and I had never painted on silk before, so I purchased it.

In the box it had enough stuff to make four different greeting cards.

I started with a cat design.  After washing and drying the silk to remove the creases, I started to trace the design using the 'Gutta', which is a paint resist, it is used to only allow the paint to spread to the edges.  If you accidentally leave a gap in the gutta, the paint will seep through into the next section.

The gutta needed 24 hours to dry properly, so I did the design and left it on the mantelpiece overnight.  The next day when I sat down to add the paint I realised I had missed the facial features off the cat, so I had to put them on and wait another 24 hours!  The sample  on the box lid had very thin smooth lines, I found this almost impossible to achieve as you needed two sets of fingers & thumbs to squeeze the tube resulting in it coming out in blobs rather than a nice smooth stream.

Then it was time for the paint.  The box only contained three colours, so I had to do some cunning paint mixing.  One drop of paint and it spread all over the silk, I quite liked that effect.

So, the finished picture, I am sure a 4 yr old could have done a better job.

I think I prefer the reverse side as it looks a little 'smoother'.

I mounted it into the card provided (reverse side up as I preferred it), of course it's all floppy whereas the one on the box is nice and taut, but there wasn't anything I could do to stretch it and make it nice and tight.

I took another piece of silk and just blobbed paint on it, I think I much preferred this effect, so I googled more about Silk Painting.  I found out that I would need a steamer to seal the colour, not sure I could be bothered with all that.

I will not be doing the other three designs, in fact I gave the kit away to the first person that showed an interest.

Not a craft for me.