new discovery

I occasionally teach a beginning workshop on silk painting. We use fiber reactive dyes, silk scarves, and Elmer's school glue (the washable kind) as a resist. It's kind of a play date for adults; there are no 'bad' results, and fun is had by all.

Last week when I went to buy the glue for the workshop, I noticed that they are now making washable glue sticks. OK, truth time, turns out that when I got home I discovered I already had one in my glue drawer. Bought it, never used it. But I thought that maybe one could get some cool marks by using it.

I just ran it across the demo scarf, pressing hard in some places, not so hard in others, hoping for a dry brush look. When I painted the dye over the scarf, it looked as if there was some resisting going on, but it was hard to tell. I don't think any of my students ventured to try it.

But they should have. Here is a peek at one result:

© 2010 BJ Parady

I love the way the colors separated out, the white spots, the yellow crackled area. I think I could do something with this. Or you could. I'm sharing the idea because I'd like to see what could be done with it, and I haven't all the time in the world to do everything I think of.