House
Wolfstan Banner Construction
By Alyna
Wolfstan
This took approx. 4 days overall
(20 hours total work). We put the frame together utilizing 2x4s because the
project was so large. For smaller projects
1x2s would work fine. The drawing was drawn out on wrapping paper to
accommodate the 12 foot length and 3 foot width we designed for the
banner. Before attempting a
large banner, we would recommend you “practice” with some smaller
ones first to get the feel for applying resist, applying the dye, etc.
The frame was built with 6”
margin of pre-washed 8mm habatoi
silk from the drawing to the board, plus extra on the end for attaching at the
hoist. We used cross sections in
the frame for support because of how long the frame needed to be. The cross sections were also placed in a
manner to allow us to insert a piece of plywood to be used as a hard surface
when tracing the design onto the silk.
The silk was tacked down with silk tacks at approx 6” intervals. You have to be careful to not pull the
silk too tight and also not to have any sags. The dye flow changes based on how tight
or loose your silk is on the frame.
For a banner this large, it’s a good idea to have 2 people tacking
the silk so you can pull the silk evenly, side-to-side, as you go to avoid
twisting or uneven silk.
The design is traced onto the silk
lightly with pencil. It mostly
washes out when you rinse the resist, but dark pencil lines can remain on your
silk and can be seen if you’re painting with lighter colors. Because the banner is fairly wide, we
supported the silk with a piece of plywood on top of books. That allowed for a smooth, hard surface
to draw. Make sure your hands are
clean when handling your silk. Oils
from your skin can affect how the silk takes the dyes. I also layed a small piece of wood
across the width of the banner as I was drawing the design so that I had a
place to anchor my arm as I reached across (not shown in these pics).
This is part of the banner showing
the resist lines. They are a little
darker than the pencil because they are still wet. The resist dries opaque. We used gutta resist in an applicator
bottle. You can get various sizes
of tips. You’ll use different
ones based on the detail of your design (i.e. fine tip for small detail). You can add dye to your resist to make
it easier to see where you have applied it. Just remember that the dye in the resist
will dye your silk. It works great
to add black dye if you want permanent black lines on your project. This makes your colors “stand
out” and makes checking for breaks in resist much easier. The resist in the pictures above does
not have dye in it. The best way to
“inspect” your resist lines before painting, is to look at your
design from the back while holding it up to a light (or a sunny window). You should not see any breaks in your
lines. If you do, go back over
those spots with resist, let dry again, and re-check for breaks.
Once all the pencil lines have
been covered with resist and the resist has been allowed to dry completely, it
was time to start applying the dye.
We used Dye-Na-Flo iron set dye.
Large areas are more difficult to paint because the dye dries very
quickly and you end up with streaking where you stopped to refill your
brush. We found that if you have
two people using the same style of brush, you can tag team so that the dye
never has a chance to dry before moving on, especially on the 9 foot runs of
red and blue. Some brushes work
better than others. You don’t
want your brush to hold too much dye or you risk “drips” as you
move your brush from the dye to your project, but you want it to hold enough so
that you aren’t constantly having to refill it allowing your dye to dry
before you want it to. If
you’re working on a large project, it’s a good idea to have a small
container of the dye in your hand near where you are pointing rather than
moving your arm back and forth from your project to your dye. To apply the dye, it’s best to
touch your brush down onto the silk about ½ “ from your lines and
let the dye flow to where you want it to go. Smaller areas may only require you to
touch your brush down in the center and the dye will fill it in
completely. Here’s where the
tightness/looseness of your silk comes in to play. Dye will flow quicker/farther on tight
silk and will puddle on sagging silk.
Also, make sure your silk is not touching your frame where you want to
apply dye. If the dye soaks through
the silk onto your frame, the frame will take the dye where you don’t
want it to go.
You can see some of the areas
where there were small breaks in the resist and the dye bled out near the
wolf’s mouth and in the border underneath the word
“Facta”. The break only
has to be minute for dye to leak out.
There’s really no fix for this problem, but you can try to dilute
the intensity of the color with a water-soaked q-tip. Be sure to allow it to dry before you
apply dye to that area. Check and
double-check your resist lines before starting to paint!
After you are completely done
painting your banner, allow it to dry completely while still on the frame. We let ours sit overnight to be
sure. Once it is dry, remove it
from the frame and set it according to the instructions for your dye. We chose to use the iron-set dye because
of the size of the banner. We tried
the steam-set dyes/setting method
on a banner this size and it was just too large to steam thoroughly, even after
approximately 10 hours of steaming.
The dyes didn’t get a chance to set and we had a lovely purple
banner. The steam-set dyes/method
did work fine for some smaller banners.
After proper setting, our banner
was ready for rinsing to wash off the resist and excess dye. The silk fibers can only hold so much
dye and any excess needs to be rinsed off before flying your banner above your
nice, white pavilion. This is the
method you use with the Dye-Na-Flo iron-set dyes. After allowing the banner to air dry, we
then trimmed off the extra silk and
sealed the unfinished edges with Fray Check. This seems to hold up pretty well. Some people like to turn their edges and
sew them.
Rather than attach the banner to
the pole with just the silk, for durability we sewed heavy duty fabric to the
hoist end of the banner and used that to attach to the pole. This gave the banner extra strength for
when the wind tugs on it. If you
decide to do this, a word of caution:
If you choose any color other than white, be sure you have given your
fabric a few vinegar rinses to wash any excess manufacturer’s dye out before
attaching it to your banner. If
not, it will bleed all over your pretty, new silk banner. Been there. Done that.
Here’s the completed banner
flying in our encampment at Junefaire 2007 on a 20ft pole. We wanted it to be seen above our
pavilions from a distance.
Resources
Dharma Trading
– for all the banner making supplies, including
silk, tacks, dyes, brushes, and resists.
Gutenberg
School of Scribes: Silk Painting 1 - lots of good information about silk painting
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House Wolfstan Projects