Silk Sculpture

More silk paintings

Personal Creativity Workshop at O'Hanlon Center for the Arts

"Butterfly", Cray-pas on Brown Paper and Origami, 24" x 24"

This week-end, Cayen really stretched our boundaries, asking us to draw inspiration from a shape, rather than our usual way of working. We were instructed to tear or cut out a shape from a plain piece of typing paper, then pick from an image from her collection of postcards spread out on the table. We used the images and shapes for inspiration in our artworks. I picked a postcard with colorful fishes. Since my dominant right arm was hurting from doing too much art these days, she instructed me to glue my images, the positive and the negative, to a plain piece of brown butcher paper, then work only with my lefthand! I felt like a kid again, using Cray-pas and "painting" large shapes on my piece of paper. During critique, members pointed out how much my piece looks like silk. I found that interesting since I am now painting on silk! This piece was folded into a kite-form after it was painted, in the tradition of Origami.

"Handmade by Elise"

My silk painting with free-associations of
words and images is complete with a hand
stitched rolled hem. I asked my sister if she
had ever sewn one before and she said that
she hadn't, but she had seen it done once.
Mine is not perfect, but it is a hand-rolled hem,
created by keeping tension on the fabric, and it
feels like quite an accomplishment for me. I
need a magnifying glass to see the "blind" stitches!