silk painting on canvas board

This is one of my all time favorite projects to do with children, silk painting.

It is a medium that absolutely every age group is successful at, all ages are fascinated by the process, and is enjoyed by kids and adults alike.

For the "Creatures Big and Small" camp, I decided to have the kids create a silk painting and then applied it to a canvas board for display.

I tacked each piece of silk onto some old embroidery stretcher boards that I have collected from the needle arts guild where I'm a member.  Every now and then a member will bring in old stretchers they no longer want and I quickly gather them for just this purpose.

4 year old

Each artist created a simple sketch on copy paper. I showed them how to use a window as a lightbox (along with a lightbox that I have in the studio) in order to keep finessing their sketch without having to erase and redraw everything. 

10 year old

When each child was happy with their sketch, they traced it lightly onto the silk with a water-soluble pencil. Then that evening after camp ended, I added the resist over their lines. This is a part I usually let them do, but given the very young age of a couple of the campers, I decided that it might be a bit frustrating for them. Since I literally just trace over the lines they drew on the silk, the integrity of their artwork isn't compromised with me taking charge of this step.

7 year old

The next day, I showed them on a scrap piece of silk some of the interesting things they could do with the dyes and then let them get to work.

6 year old

They had so much fun watching different colors run together and were fascinated as the dyes moved across the silk and then were stopped by the resist.

5 year old

The loved adding water drops and salt to create different effects and even when the silk was completely covered in color, they still wanted to add more just because they didn't want the project to end.

9 year old

When they were finished, I set the dyes and washed out the resist. Then when the silks were dried used matte medium to apply them to the canvas board. Then the next day, I gave each child the opportunity to add black line with a permanent marker since the resist left just white lines. In some cases where the resist just left a big while "hole", (like the eye of the flamingo above), I encouraged the artist to go ahead and draw in an eye and such. Then they signed their works and were done.

5 year old

They were so proud of their finished pieces and it was a joy to watch them get so excited as they watched the dyes move and the salts do their magic right before their eyes. Silk paintings are always one of the hardest projects to watch leave the studio as I so enjoy having them on display but I hope, no I know, the artists will enjoy them for many years to come.