Enjoy feature article on Tina Gleave as she shares her philosophies and techniques for painting light on silk. Veteran artist and instructor Susan Louise Moyer shares her Festival 2014 presentation on Elements of Design while former SPIN President, Joyce Estes, explores her time spent with silk painters on the Isle of Man.

In This Issue

Monarch Dance
by Tina Gleave

Capturing the Light with Tina Gleave
by Tunizia Abdur-Raheem

Think about the dappled light of a Renoir, a Monet or any of the other Impressionist paintings that have become so popular over the last century.  How do you translate this beautiful and luminous effect onto silk?

Ah, but the dazzling effects of silk. So often the lushness of the shiny canvas and the vivacity of the colors render the artist devoid of ideas, ability or even desire to conceive beyond the bounds of simple dye on silk.  

But once the artist has moved beyond the pure pleasure of thick cobalt lines on pearlescent fabric, where do we go?  When we want to capture a more realistic or even photo-realistic portrayal of imagery, how do we approach the subject matter?  In many silk paintings, the viewer is left flat.  The image is flat, the color is flat and they both lack subtle nuance.  It’s easy to see how a painter can opt out of bringing the viewer into a sunlit canvas.  Silk dyes on silk are so luminous.  Very often, the vibrant color seems quite enough.  After all, most painters paint lights by adding in the light and shadow with paint

Wave by Susan Louise Moyer

Composition and Balance
Susan Louise Moyer Shares Her Presentation of the Elements of Design

Susan Louise Moyer presented a workshop at the 2014 Silk in Santa Fe Festival.  Many of the artists in attendance found the information so valuable, Moyer agreed to share her presentation with the Silkworm.