gutta Archives - Vivat Veritas

In my last post about Silk Painting, I showed what the paint looked like on polyester satin. I painted on 100% silk satin, and was very surprised by how much different the result was (polyester vs. silk). I much prefer painting on 100% silk. The paint spreads and mixes the color on silk beautifully, which I did not experience on 100% poly satin. I only have six basic colors (yellow, red, blue, purple, brown and black) plus lightening medium (to thin the paint without using water), but I was able to create the flower and grape motif pictured below. I used a small embroidery hoop to stretch the silk, so I painted one petal at a time, and re-stretched the silk on different parts of the fabric. Thankfully, the paint dries pretty quickly (might dry even quicker if I were to use a hair dryer) . I find it easier to complete the darts and one side seam before painting. That way, you can extend the motif from the front piece to back piece without having a gap because of the side seam. The dress is just a test before I paint on the bride’s dress, so she can see the pattern placement. The dress will be added to the shop for a sample sale price soon!

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I have new crafting goal, I’m trying – silk painting. It all started when a customer asked for a silk wedding dress with a floral motif. I looked for fabric that is silk and has an asymmetrical floral motif on it, but was unable to find any. However while I searched, I found out about silk painting. I decided to make a dress in white silk and paint a floral motif on it.

Silk painting can be done on silk that is stretched on some frame, like an embroidery hoop, using silk painting paints. It started in China, but is more popular in the U.S. and Europe, not so widely seen in Japan. There are a lot of supplies available in U.S. sites, and Dharma Trading is one of them. I was going to buy supplies from Dharma, but the shipping cost was high. So I went on to search Japanese sites that have silk painting supplies available. So far, I only found one: Yume Gazai (ゆめ画材).

There are a few essential materials you need for silk painting: silk paints (I bought SetaSilk, which is a water-based, non-toxic thin paint), Gutta (A resist is a substance that halts the spreading of dye or paint as an outline, or preserves the original color of the fabric in a shape or design), lightening medium (as you can’t use water to thin the color since it may fade), a frame to stretch silk, and brushes. I use an embroidery hoop to stretch silk, and watercolor brushes. As a starter, I bought a clear color gutta.

I am going to eventually purchase silk fabric to paint on, but for right now, I wanted to test on cheap fabric. I used off-white color 100% polyester satin. Above is a picture showing how I’m stretching the fabric.Then, using gutta, I drew the outer shape of the flower motifs. This is to avoid leaking of the silk paint; since the paint is like watercolor and spreads on the fabric canvas so quickly, if you want a clear line, you use gutta to stop it from leaking. It will take me a while to get use to using gutta. The gutta tube does not let me draw a very fine, thin lines. As you can see above, the line is quite thick and it will not work for the project I have in mind. Also, gutta took forever to dry. After that, painting is just like drawing with watercolor. You can mix the color and just paint. It will take a bit of practice to figure out how much the paint bleeds.

After finishing the paint, I let it completely dry for 24 hours and then iron to set the color. I set the iron in low-heat setting and iron the fabric in a circular motion. I hand-washed the fabric in cold water to see if the color fades, but it was ok! Not that I will wash silk fabric, it is good to know that the color is intact even after washing. Above, you can see the motifs drawn using gutta and without gutta. I personally like it without gutta as the lines drawn with gutta look distracting. But at the same time, it might be hard to have bright colors without gutta. What do you all think?