Wrought Iron Bougainvillea - Silk Painting

Last week I taught my niece how to paint on silk and that made me miss silk painting so I decided to paint one this week.  I have some photos of bougainvillea against an orange building and am working on painting it in watercolor so I thought I would try painting it using silk dyes on silk also.  It has a completely different look than the watercolor painting.

I was planning to put shadows from the bougainvillea on the wall but felt that this design was already too busy and the shadows  probably wouldn't read right in a silk painting.  I am going to make the shadows fairly important in the watercolor painting.  That painting doesn't have the wrought iron so it's busy in a different way.

In this painting, I used salt to give a suggestion of stucco in the wall but the color I used didn't react very much with the salt.  I probably had the color too light.  I also experimented with using colored resists for parts of the details but need to go darker next time.  It's all a learning experience, right?

By the way, my niece is a natural at the silk painting.  Her painting is turning out great and she's already planning her next project.  Silk painting is VERY addictive but it's a pretty healthy addiction.

Wrought Iron Bougainvillea
Image Size 15.5" x 23.25"
Silk dyes on silk
Stretched but unframed