In my Capstone project, I thought that silk painting was like any other painting. Turns out there’s a lot more involved. Silk was first used and made in 2696 BC by the Yellow Emperor’s wife, named Leizu. After a while, China was the only one in the world producing silk. And that attracted a lot of Europeans, despite the fact that the walking distance was long. Like really, REALLY long. In fact, it was normal for people from Europe to take an entire year to get silk clothing! The silk was also expensive, so not many people could afford it. 

In ancient China when the Chinese were not one country but tribes, the yellow emperor Xuanyuan Huangdi (pronounced as, shuan-ren Hooang-dee), was the first mythological emperor of China. People then, like all the subjects, wore animal skins. His wife, Leizu, found a silkworm cocoon in her water. And she thought of something no one else would. Normally people’s reaction to this would be,” Ew!! Get it out!” or calmly pick it up and put it in nature. But Leizu, instead, immediately thought that they could use it to make clothing. And after that many women were making silk. Many rich people came and bought it. Of course, it was expensive because silk was smooth and could be used for complex designs. This was great, and over the years silk painting became easier. 

Silk painting went from having over 70 complex steps, to easy and sometimes complicated steps. It can be fun after some practice and tutorials. And, here is the link to my capstone presentation.