All of last semester, my wooden frame for stretching silk languished in the back of the garage, and every time I visited home, I shot it a little mournful look. Silk dyeing takes a long time, and time is not always a luxury I have! But I finally had the chance to string up the last scarf in my stash-- a lovely, ethereal chiffon.

My previous designs consisted mostly of celtic knotwork, Elvish writing, or loose constellations. For this scarf, I decided to push the illustrative aspect a little further. In the future, I'd love to create some scarves which are more like little wearable illustrations, featuring my own characters and stories. But for this first attempt at "illustrative" silk painting, I decided to stick with one of my tried and true favorites: The Lord of the Rings.

One end of the sheer silk has a loose illustration of Hobbiton, complete with gardens and trees and other little Hobbit holes in the background. The other end features Imladris, or Rivendell. This is loosely based on one of J.R.R. Tolkien's very own illustration of the Last Homely House. 

I did record the entire process of making this silk scarf, which should hopefully show how much love and slow, peaceful work goes in to these pieces. The second video has all the actual painting: