Shankari says it’s never too early or too late to take up silk painting. Sacred River Retreat has nurtured children and eighty-year-old grandfathers into creating their own masterpieces. These then can be worn as sarongs, power shawls or transformed into shirts, kimonos, shorts or a bedspread.

A couple who recently undertook a spiritual wedding at the Retreat [that’s another story] created silk sarongs for each other which expressed their love, and exchanged them at their ceremony as a symbol of their co-creative spirit. A New York designer painted two silks over the course of a week, so enthralled was she with the medium.

CREATING A FABRIC LANDSCAPE
The fear of failure is what prevents most people from commencing new experiences and challenges in their lives. And this is so with first-time silk painters - they fear they will fail, and yet silk is such a forgiving fabric. It allows even the most amateur artist to create vibrant scenes and blendings of colour. A splash of colour here, a well-placed dot there, a blending of tones you never thought imaginable and voila - a fabric landscape that makes your heart sing every time you look at it.

A sheath of undyed silk fabric is as a white canvas: it represents a blank page of your life, a wide range of possibilities as yet untapped within your creative spirit. Shankari has learned that what we may see as a mistake today can become a fortuitous event tomorrow. "Just as in life, when you are painting a silk, a plan or an idea that you have may not turn out as you first intended. And yet, I have never seen a guest disappointed with their final product. Something magical occurs in the steaming process that brings out the true beauty of the colours, brush strokes and washes. ‘Mistakes’ turn into a brilliant burst of colour or a subtle wash of tones. You can’t lose when you use silk as your canvas," she says.

There are three popular silk fabrics used in silk painting: Habité, Silk Chiffon and Satin Silk. Each of these fabrics provides its own response to the dyes introduced to it. Habité, most often used for sarongs, scarves and shirts because of its light weight (ideal in tropical climates), soaks up the dyes like a hungry child. Satin Silk, a slightly heavier fabric that falls majestically when worn as a kimono, has a sheen about it that allows the dyes to sparkle. Silk Chiffon is a more pliable fabric: bending under the weight of the brush and asking more of the artist than its counterparts, but the end result is well worth it! It flows around the body like a gossamer haze.

The water-soluble silk dyes are imported from Australia and Italy. The three primary colours - red, yellow and blue - create a rainbow of colours with careful blending. Other specialised colours can add richer tones and shades.

Self discovery through silk
Silk Painting workshops at Sacred River Retreat are an exercise in self-discovery as much as an artistic venture. Participants are asked to choose three words that best express the qualities they are seeking in their life (e.g. abundance, forgiveness, nurturing). They are then asked to choose three colours from a colour swatch that they feel best represents those aspects. A 2.5 metre silk sheath is stretched and the dyes prepared for transformation.

"The best course of action is to lay down your background colour before you begin to do the more delicate brush work," explains Shankari. "When you paint a line it will expand as the silk absorbs the dye. Can you see how this equates with life? We are always unaware of how great our influence is. Energy doesn’t lie and ultimately it doesn’t die - it only expands and transforms. As you apply the paint to the silk, the lines expand and transform the plain white expanse into something of unexpected beauty and power!"

Shankari recommends that artists not leave any white places on their painting. "The white bits on your silk will always annoy you, just as a missed opportunity annoys us in life," she says. "We must take the opportunity to use the whole silk and celebrate who we are! You can use very pale colours if you wish, but every inch of your silk should be painted, just as every day of your life should be lived to the fullest."

For more information on silk painting workshops, contact Sacred River Retreat on 361 814 993. If you can’t make it to Sacred River Retreat, check out the web site: www.sacredriver.com or call Sacred River Silks on 361 370 904 to ask about available products.

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