Georgette Grenier

I am a half-retired 72 years old grandmother speaking mostly French. So, my English vocabulary in not perfect... Excuse me...

Since childhood when I was teaching to my sister's dolls and mine, I have always felt a teacher. First in a High School where I have been teaching Maths during 11 years, then in my own gym where I trained women for 42 years. Now, aside from going on teaching Pilates and Stretching lessons to women of my community in a gym near my home, I will teach classes of Silk Painting in next September at the Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre City Center situated minutes away from the Mont Ste-Anne ski resort in Quebec, Canada.

Since about 15 years, I paint watercolor on silk that I discovered at the library in a French book while I was looking for a novel to read in my leisure time. Before my discovery of silk painting, I have studied watercolor on paper with Mrs Lisette B. Cantin, a renowned watercolor painter and teacher in Quebec for 10 years. Since about 5 years, I only paint on silk even if I still keep my material and paints for watercolor on paper.

I paint on silk, mostly on scarves. But I also produced painted silk camisoles, kimonos and murals for family members and friends. Usually, I sell my scarves on my website SOIES & LAINES GEORGIE. I even sold creations in France.

My inspirations are usually my flowers for I am a fervent gardener. But, I stylise them because my drawing possibilities are limited. Also, my sphinx cat Sultan inspires me for animal paintings. To satisfy dog and sphinx lover customers, I sold many scarves with the buyer's pet picture painted on silk.

I buy paints, dyes, guttas, scarves and silks from Dharma. I prefer to paint exclusively with the three primary colors, mixing all the colors I need from them. The quality of DYE-NA-FLOW paints in Brilliant Red, Sun Yellow and Azure Blue (they mix beautifully) makes possible the mixing of all the secondary and tertiary colors I need. I sometimes also use SETASILK's Hermes Red, Primary Yellow and Cyan for my color mixes. I also tried the Colorhue Instant set dyes but, as I like to paint with the primary colors only, my mixing of the secondary and tertiary hues are not satisfactory to me at the moment. But I go on with my experiences. As gutta, I use Pebeo in colored resist but my favorite is your Water-based Resist. As a try, I also employed a mix of sugar and water as resist, creating interesting textures in painting.

Silk is a wonderful fabric that reacts just like paper is doing in watercolor on paper. The painter tries to do the best of effects but the paint has like "a life of its own " on the support, whether it's paper or silk. For me, the medium has "the last word" in the project. That is the wonder of watercolor on silk. It shows the painter to cultivate patience and love of well-done and precise work.

In my silk painting classes, I hope to transmit adequately my passion for silk painting to my students and help promote their talent in art.