Two years ago, Rebel Rozeboom, a direct service professional at ProAct in Shakopee, channeled her interest in art and design to silk painting.
She had tie-dyed T-shirts, and noticed that the online store where she bought materials also carried products for silk artistry. Rozeboom took a chance, bought a starter kit and taught herself the basics of creating art on silk.
The large piece of silk is stretched over a frame (she used plastic pipes), much like a canvas is stretched over a wooden frame for painting. The design is sketched out with soft pencil and then “gutta resist,” a liquid rubber, follows the artistic lines, creating sections to receive the dyes. This gutta resist border keeps the dye color isolated into that area. Water is put on each segment and the dyes are added. It then dries, and the entire silk is steamed to set the colors.
Rozeboom has made scarves and wall hangings for gifts to her friends and family. Currently, she is working on hanging banners for her church. “My goal is to bring my love of silk painting to the participants at ProAct,” she said. The DSP is saving her pennies to get a large enough kit started for a class.
She orders the materials from a California company, where she first noticed the beautiful samples of silk art. The basic tools and materials include Habotai scarves, silk hoops, sumi brushes, Jacquard dyes for silk, and gutta resist. They are found at Dharma Trading Company or other art supply outlets. The scarves are also known as “China silk,” and are lower in cost than other silks.
Rozeboom invites those with an art curiosity to watch a YouTube video on silk art, find a class or send her an email if they have questions.