family pet silk paintings

Silk painting continues to be a favorite among the kids in the studio and I was excited to present the project to the children attending the Pets-n-Art summer camp.

Colby. 5 year old

Each child started off by creating a sketch of their pet on copy paper. I emphasized drawing their pet large on the paper so they would ultimately have lots to color on the silk.

Tiggs. 7 year old

Duffy 9 year old

I also find that I need them not to create small details because the resist has a tendency to expand on the silk and ultimately wiped out small details and the end result is just a white mass.

Pushka. 5 year old

Once they were happy with their sketch, I handed them a piece of silk I had already stretched on a bracket. I create my brackets either from pvc pipe, embroidery hoops, or in this case old embroidery stretchers that I have acquired from women in the local needle arts guild who are purging their stash.

Q-Bert and Fiddy.  9 year old

Q-Bert. 7 year old

I placed a thick book on the table which each child could lay down their paper sketch and then the stretcher board over top of that to trace their drawings onto the silk without causing the silk to "pop off" the stretcher.

Woflie. 7 year old

At this point, we went on to another project and overnight I added resist to over each child's line work. In the past, I let the kids do this part too but because of the range of ages in the camp felt it best this time if I managed this part. The next morning when I went over the things they could do with the dyes on silk, I did show them how I applied the resist too so they understood this step.

Pushka. 7 year old

The next morning it was time to paint the silk. Lots of excitement as the kids applied the dyes and more than once a child would excitedly call me over to share what they discovered the dyes could do on the silk.

"cosmic" Kali. 8 year old

Violet. 10 year old

One of the things I had presented to the kids prior to their painting was the fauvist art movement. We talked about color being a tool to show personality or emotion and many of the children decided to create their pets in a variety of colors they felt reflected the personalities of their pets.

Ginger. 4.5 year old

Others simply had fun just applying mass amounts of color to the silk and watching it move around.

Sandy. 9 year old

Aussie. 7 year old

Once the kids were finished painting, I set the dyes and then applied the silks to a canvas board. The next morning, I handed out some permanent black markers and allowed the children to add in any details in black they felt their artwork needed and to sign their names.

Aussie. 5 year old

Needless to say, once again silk painting proved to be a fun and exciting project, one the kids seemed to throughly enjoy almost as much as I enjoyed sharing it with them.