Rainbow Silk Scarves with a New Twist

Update 2020:  I am currently designing online silk painting classes which I am planning to launch this summer. Details below.

As many of you know I love to paint with vibrant rainbow colours when I get my silks out. And over the past few years I have created all sorts of rainbow designs on my scarves.

Painting on the rainbow colours

Painting on the rainbow colours

But this month a customer asked me to paint a rainbow silk with a new twist. This time I added the dyes running the full length of the silk so that top and bottom of the scarf were identical. Often my scarves have one purple end and one red/magenta end.

Fiona Stolze rainbow silk scarf

I used salts again too for a lovely textured look.

Those of you who paint on silk will know that it’s a bit trickier painting very long lines and keeping everything straight at the same time.

You also have to juggle the paint brushes to keep blending the edges so that there are no hard lines.

Fiona Stolze rainbow silk scarf

Fiona sprinkling effect salts on the rainbow silk scarf

I often wonder what people would think if I let a video camera run while I was busy trying to multitask and generally getting very rainbow-coloured and messy.

When the silk was complete I was truly mesmerised. All those rich colours flowing into each other with a new look. It’s always a real shower of colour therapy, no doubt about it.

When you sprinkle the salts on, you then leave them lying there for a while until you reach the desired effect.

For very light delicate effects you might want to remove the salt after a few minutes. But for very structured, textural looks just leave it on for quite a while.

The dry silk on the frame before steaming

The dry silk on the frame before steaming

And of course after the 3 hour steam bath and a good wash and iron, I love the photoshoots as then it’s time to get really creative.

The rainbow silk scarf fresh out of the steamer

The rainbow silk scarf fresh out of the steamer

So I thought I’d share all these latest photos with you here  as I had a lot of fun taking the photos and styling the silk in different ways. Each silk has its own completely unique look and this one was certainly no exception.

The rainbow silk scarf styled as a summer wrap

The rainbow silk scarf styled as a summer wrap

I loved how this looked wrapped around the model like a summer top. I then turned the silk upside down and took another picture and it looks completely different again.

The rainbow silk scarf with red at the top

The rainbow silk scarf with red at the top

I think I’ll be taking all of the photos from this shoot and putting them together into an animated slideshow. They’re always a lot of fun to make.

Let me know what you think of this rainbow look. And if you have any new suggestions, let me know too.

It’s always lovely to explore and try new things out. No matter how long I’ve been painting on silk, sometimes when I set about doing things I’ve done many times before, I come up against new challenges that I didn’t expect and the stretch is always good.

Thanks for stopping by.

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