Description
?Stinking Iris? started with inspiration from a dog walk along the coastal path at Portishead and then experimentation with vitreous enamel on copper. I belong to a small group of artists called Art6, each month we all create a piece of work to a defined theme. This painting was created for a monthly theme of ‘Organic’. Much of my work focuses on Organic subject matter but for this month?s theme I allowed the work to develop in a more organic fashion. I started with the enamel panel then allowed the results of the enamelling to dictate the colours in the surrounding silk painting. Stinking Iris is a perennial that grows along the base of hedgerows and particularly likes a coastal spot. The flowers are fairly dull in colour and are very beautiful when examined closely but the real splash of colour comes in the autumn with these striking orange berries.
The original painting will come mounted on a brown painted frame – size 8 inch x 8 inch
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.
