Silk Painting

Sessions:  2
Hrs per Session:  2

Silk painting originated over 5,000 years ago in ancient China and later spread across East Asia and Europe through the Silk Road. It was traditionally used for religious scrolls, garments, and luxury decorative arts, especially in Buddhist contexts.

The style is known for its vibrant colours, smooth blending, and the natural shimmer of silk, often featuring motifs like flowers, birds, landscapes, and abstract patterns. A key technique involves using resist materials such as gutta or wax to create clean outlines and prevent colour bleeding. The process typically involves stretching silk on a frame, optionally applying resist to define the design, painting with specialised silk dyes, setting the colours through steaming or heat, and then washing and finishing the piece.

Common materials include different types of silk fabric (like Habotai or Crepe), concentrated silk dyes (steam-fixable or heat-fixable), resists (gutta or wax), and tools such as brushes, frames, a steamer, and an iron. Today, silk painting is practiced worldwide, appreciated for both its beauty and versatility.