While I appreciate the joys and challenges of painting on silk with line resists, my true passion is using the dyes in a free form manner. My art degree is in painting, so I have tried to use those techniques and sensibilities to silk as my “canvas” or substrate. Many times I use a mixture of salt water as an overall resist to slow down the flow of the dyes to create my basic design, then carefully employing different strengths of dyes I build my design. I generally steam my works at least once before I apply the final washes of dyes and steaming for a final time. Lately, I have found that the slightest touches of alcohol pens at the very end of the painting can pull some loose ends together