I Hand Painted This One-Of-A-Kind Birthday Scarf

Hand painting a silk scarf is fun, but when there’s the chance to create a design from a customer’s vision, it’s the best thing ever. When I was asked to make a commemorative scarf for a lady’s 60th birthday by her son, he had a general idea of what he wanted in the design, and one very specific requirement – the scarf must feature the family’s dogs Iris and George – two beautiful lurchers. They sent me a rough sketch and a photograph of the dogs, so that I could get a feel of their vision. Here’s how I made the dream a reality.

More info: aratidevasher.co.uk

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My client’s initial sketch and photo of the dogs

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My sample designs and the final one ‘photoshopped’ so they could see what it might look like

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Starting out with the drawings of the dogs and the text

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Stretching the plain white silk scarf to keep it taut

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Tracing the dogs on to the silk with a temporary-ink pen and then adding gutta resist to contain the dye

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The first step complete – gutta outline on the dog border

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Choosing dye colours and heating up the soy wax to add colour and more designs

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Once the dogs were painted in (sorry, I forgot to take pictures!), hot wax was brushed on to protect them from splashes of other colours

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Adding dye and wax in layers to get the final effect (batik-ish technique)

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In progress with the text also blocked out with gutta…

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In progress… more layers of colour and dye

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In progress… adding the ferns in with hot soy wax as resist to preserve areas of colour when I put the next layer of dye on

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More stages of wax and dye application…

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Almost done with the design… every single stroke is hand painted on

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The border…

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Final stages of wax and dye application…

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Detail shot of the wax layers; addition of salt to the wed dye on the border creates a nice texture

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Brushing off the salt when the dye is completely dry reveals the amazing texture and patterns it creates

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The wax is removed by ironing it off on to paper

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After ‘resting’ overnight, the scarf is wrapped in layers of paper and steamed for 3-4 hours to set the dyes, and remove the remaining wax. It’s rested overnight again, and then washed in cool water to remove excess dye and any remaining (eco-friendly and water soluble) soy wax

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After ironing the scarf while still damp, I added my logo – this is the only printing technique used in the entire process of making the silk scarf

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Here are some details of the text after I’ve re-stretched the silk on the frame to add some silver gutta outliner to create defined edges

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The finished scarf on the frame as the final silver gutta is drying

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Here’s the final scarf!

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Details of the design…

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Details of the design…

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Details of the design…

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Ready for my client to gift to his Mum on her 60th birthday…

P.S. I heard she loved it, so – YAY!

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