Best way to create black lines on silk – Video 001

JoAnn asks, “What’s the best way to create black lines on silk, which will be 0.25-0.5 inch wide (0.5-1.0cm): gutta, outliner or black silk dye?”

Excellent question JoAnn – here’s a quick little video to show you some samples of my hand-painted silk scarves and why I chose the fine outliner for one (a gutta-like substance) and a thick paintbrush line on the other scarf – let me know if this doesn’t answer your question.

Prefer to watch on Youtube? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=begzqpd2Hv0

In this video I talk about the following techniques to create black lines on silk:

  1. my water-based outliner with black dye added to it in a squeezy bottle, drawn with a finepoint nozzle/nib (this is like using gutta [pronounced “gootah”]) – I used this for very think sharp lines
  2. broad brushstrokes using my water-based outliner with black dye added to it – for this I used a paintbrush rather than a squeezy bottle with a nib
  3. another technique is to use the outliner to mark the outside edges of a wide space, which is then painted with black dye inbetween.

It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve — pick the one which will give you the best results with the least steps :-)


Halloween’s just around the corner!

In celebration of Halloween, I’m attaching a jpg/image of bats – this NOT to be used “exactly as is” – please download and copy parts you might want to use in a silk project, but please be aware you cannot exactly reproduce this entire image.

Creative Commons License
You are free to use these patterns as long as you keep to the rules in the following link: The patterns on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

What's the best way to create black lines on silk

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Ciao for now, happy painting!!
Teena!

Video Lesson using Thin and Thick Gutta or Outliner Lines

Joann wrote to me and wanted to know whether to use paint our gutta / outliner to create black lines in her design.

This will depend on how WIDE the line needs to be;  if it’s half an inch or 1.25cm wide, that’s way too much gutta (“gootah”) or outliner to put on the silk, so opt for paint in this case.

Whether to Use Thin and Thick Gutta or Outliner Lines?

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Your Say on Using Thin and Thick Gutta Lines

Have you tried to do either of these? Did it work well for you? I’d love to hear your experience so we can all share and learn together — please post a comment below or leave a voicemail (button on the right side of the screen).