Museums, cylinders, and painting on silk

[dragonimp]

We went to the Asian Art Museum yesterday, which is always and all-day affair and usually exhausting. But we wanted to see the Cyrus Cylinder while it was here. It's a fascinating exhibit, both historically and artistically.

But also there was Japanese Art from the Larry Ellison Collection, and it got me thinking about wall scrolls. More specifically how many of them are painted on silk.

Now you can't really just paint right onto plain silk because it will bleed. Silk painting usually uses a resist of some kind but the wall scrolls don't look like they use that. I would assume the silk is treated in some way - like the way linen or cotton canvases are treated and gessoed - but my Google-fu is not turning up what I want to know. You can get silk already prepared for painting, but I can't find anything that says what is traditionally used. Or even not traditionally, I'd settle for a modern equivalent.

And then I found this artist who paints freehand on silk with sumi ink. But all it says is that she uses a fixing solution in the ink to make the garment washable.

And I'm sitting here going "What fixing solution? What do you use?? How do you prepare the fabric??? AAAAAAAAHH!!" But my Googling has turned up even less on this than on silk wall scrolls.

But goddamit I wanna know how she does that!!

(Also still want to know how wall scrolls are made.)

Comments

[amethyst_koneko]

I found this slideshow (http://snapguide.com/guides/print-a-photo-on-silk-with-inkodye/) talking about something called inkodye. I get the feeling that this stuff could be used to make things like wallscrolls. As far as what a "fixing solution" is, your guess is a good as mine. :/

[dragonimp]

Oh wow, that stuff is cool! I might have to look into that.

The most common fixer I know of is soda ash - but that's for procion fiber reactive dyes and I have NO idea if it would work for sumi ink. I've also used vinegar with tea dying, but again, don't know how the ink would react with it. Silk itself can take both acid and basic mordants soo... I guess I'm just going to have to experiment ^^;

[tierfal.livejournal.com]

I wish I had more to offer than my wide-eyed fascination at all of this! ;A;

If you get desperate, let me know, and I'll turn the librarian family friend's "Impossible to find out, you say? LET ME GET YOU A BOOK ON IT" powers towards this. :3

[dragonimp]

The library was the next place I was thinking of looking, actually. My local one might not have much, but it's amazing what you can find over Link+. I think I need to look into techniques for natural dyes.

[anotherfmafan]

Yeah, see...this is the difference between artists and non-artists. *laughs* I just go, "Ohhh, gorgeous!" and that's all. XD
Hope you are able to find something useful to satisfy your curiosity!

[dragonimp]

LOL, yeah, I've "outed" myself as an artist with this kind of thing before, it's kind of a dead giveaway. But it does make life interesting!