Description
Puddles, Velvet Bottom, Mendips, Original Silk Painting
Velvet Bottom Nature Reserve is one of three Somerset Wildlife Trust nature reserves that make up the Cheddar Complex. The nature reserve runs along the bottom of a dry river bed that was once used for lead mining. The previous mining has created a really interesting undulating landscape. At the top end there is a small parking area which given the wet weather we?ve had is often dominated by large puddles. I just loved the reflections in the puddles.
My paintings are mainly painted on pure Chinese habotai 8 silk with specialist silk paints. I start each work with a drawing on paper and then trace the image onto a piece of white silk stretched onto a wooden frame. I then apply a special paint called gutta, which contains natural latex called gutta-percha, over my traced lines. This creates a resistive barrier through which the coloured ink will not flow. I apply the coloured ink with a brush and use salt dropped into the ink whilst wet to created textured effects.
The finished painting is removed from the wooden frame, ironed to fix the colour in the fabric and stretched onto acid-free mountboard ready for framing.
You can see a time lapse video of me painting here.
The original painting will come mounted to fit a 40 x 50 cm frame. The actual image size is 30 x 40 cm. Frame is not included.
