Great New Silk Scarf Colors For Spring & Free Tip!

I finally got my studio switched back around for silk painting again and it felt great to be painting all these wonderfully light and bright spring colors on silk scarves. I was craving more vibrant color during these long cold winter days here in Vermont. I used a combination of my Dupont French dyes and Jacquard Dyes from Dharma Trading.com and I am hoping to put them in my silk steamer tomorrow for 2-3 hours to set the dyes. Two of them will be shipped out to a customer some will be going into my Etsy shop and some will be going to The River Artisans Gallery in Bellows Falls to be juried into the gallery.  I'm hoping to keep building my stock back up over the next couple of weeks after it got so depleted over the holidays. 

You can click on Photos to Enlarge

On some of the scarves I used Kosher salt for that awesome textured effect you get as the salt draws the dye out of the silk creating a look reminiscent of the tails of thousands of tiny falling stars. If you have never tried using the salt technique Dharma Trading has a short but sweet tutorial here: Salt Technique On Silk You can also use this effect with watercolors on paper. It is great for simulating the look of grass or the leaves on trees in landscape painting. In the photo below of one of my scarves you can see the effect the salt had on the dye. The effect varies a great deal depending on the levels of humidity in the air, the thickness of the silk, how diluted the dyes are and it does not wok on very light pastel colors. 

I'm in the process of starting a mailing list on my website. I will be using the list to mail out exclusive coupon sale codes for items my Etsy shop, links to short tutorial videos and giveaways. So hop on over and sing up using the form at the bottom of all my website pages. Crow House Studio ~ Linda Marcille Art