About Silk Painting

Painting on silk is a beautiful process, but also a surprisingly complex and labour-intensive one.

For my larger silk artworks, I used pure silk of substantial weight and quality. I eventually began importing a particularly heavy satin silk directly from mainland China because I was unable to find anything comparable in Australia.

The silk is stretched tightly onto a wooden frame, then painted with special water-based dyes formulated specifically for pure silk. Unlike paint, the dyes penetrate the fibres themselves, creating the luminous colour and richness that make silk painting so distinctive.

[Photos: painting the stretched silk]

Once the painting is complete, the colour still has to be permanently fixed into the fabric. This is done by steam-setting the dyes. The painted silk is carefully rolled inside a slightly larger piece of cotton fabric, wrapped around a rod, and placed in a purpose-made steamer above boiling water.

[Photo: steaming process]

After steaming, the silk must dry very thoroughly, usually for several days.

Then comes one of the less glamorous parts of the process: washing. Each piece is repeatedly washed and rinsed by hand in both hot and cold water until the final rinse runs completely clear. A pale or pastel work may require only two or three washes, while a painting containing deep or very dark colours can require as many as ten.

Once dry again, the silk is treated with a specialist protective product to improve colourfastness, UV resistance and resistance to insects.

Only then is the finished painting ready to be cut to its final size and carefully ironed.

The mounting process is another artwork in itself.

A wooden support frame is made to the correct dimensions and topped with a lightweight rigid board, followed by a soft layer of padding or batting. This protects the delicate silk, particularly around the edges. The finished silk is then stretched evenly over the entire surface and secured from behind.

Finally, the work may be placed inside a decorative outer frame — or simply allowed to stand on its own.

The result is a very different kind of artwork: luminous, tactile and almost impossible to reproduce exactly.

And, dare I say it, very labour-intensive.

But that is also part of what makes an original silk painting so special.