Saying goodbye is so hard to do

Sometimes it is hard for me to watch a project walk out the door.  And such was the case with this cute Mother's Day project one of my students worked on to give her mother as a gift.

I love silk painting with children.   I have yet to see a child not come away with something beautiful and it works at all age levels- from the very young to adult.

So for Mother's Day, I introduced a project to one of my students where she would paint a silk scarf for her mum.  The hardest part was getting started and coming up with an idea for the repeated drawing on the scarf.

Seriously I think the hardest part of being an artist is the blank page in front of you.  That page sometimes taunts you as you struggle to come up with an idea to create upon it.  And such was the case when I asked this student to draw out her idea for the scarf.

So I started asking her questions.

What does your mum like to do?

ummmmmm

Does your mum have a favorite food?

ummmmmm

What does your mum love the most?

Her family and coffee.

BINGO!

We have an idea.

Now the challenge on how to execute it simple enough to trace with resist and paint with dye.

She sketched out a self portrait and then a portrait of each of her sisters.  I thought her idea of adding a collar to contain the portrait was brilliant, especially when she added each girl's name.

Above is the artist.  Once she had her sketches worked out, she sketched them onto the silk with a washable pencil to create a pattern.  Then once all the drawings were on the silk, we pinned the silk onto a frame I made from PVC pipe.  Once it was all pinned on, she began to trace over all her lines with resist.  This is the important part as you have to make sure the lines are solid so the inks do not "jump" across the intended placement.

I have a clear resist that dissolves with water.

I loved how she thought through distinctive features for each of the girls.  Evidently her middle sister has long bangs that are growing out and green eyes.  The heart on the "I" is very important to the artist too as she always dots her "I" with a heart, just like her mom did when she was a little girl.

I told you, this scarf is just eat 'em up adorable and it was soooo hard to watch it walk out the door.  No matter how much I really like this mom!

When the resist was dry, she began using the inks.  

Evidently the youngest sister is a little grumpy, hence the frown.  My insides just might of turned to jello when she added that detail to the work.  And she really does have this adorable little bob haircut when she comes to pick up her big sister from class!

Have I mentioned how hard it was to wrap this up and send it home with the artist?

And if that wasn't enough to turn your heart to mush, she added a cup of coffee to put within the design. 

Brace yourself......

This is her mother's favorite cup, with the flower on it.  And the steam rising in a heart!  Oh be still my beating heart.

The background and border were done in blue and purple because those are her mother's favorite colors.  She did the blue in a wash with water to create some interest and then added salt into the purple to create texture.

Honestly, there is so much thought and love in this scarf.  What a keepsake for her mother.  

Once she was done with all the dye work, I just had to heat set it with an iron.  Once the dye was all set, I rinsed it out in cold water to take out the resist and the pencil marks and then ironed it again to make it crisp.

There was one slight hiccup in that some of the white resist made her drawing hard to read, so I went over some of her marks with a thin tip permanent black marker.  By putting a paper towel underneath the silk, I could control it and keep it from bleeding on the silk where I didn't want it.

I had her make a stamp to create the wrapping paper and then she did some Suminagashi to create a Mother's Day card.  (sorry I did not get pictures of that to share with you)

But I will leave you with two more pictures of her scarf.  It was so long it was impossible to get a picture of it all laid out, but you get the drift.  And I'm sure you can now understand why I might of had a slight little cry when the work walked out of my studio door.

Sometimes saying goodbye is hard to do.