It’s been fun using the Magic Sizing as a resist, and playing with effects on the silk. I love the way colors go on to the silk with the sizing on it- they stay very blocky, where brushed on, and will layer rather than immediately blend.
Blocky dye application visible on treated silk.
However, after trying this for a few paintings, I missed the blending effect of wet-on-wet on the uncoated silk. So, of course I found myself wanting to combine both methods.
I started with putting in the basic structure of the painting on silk that had Magic Sizing on it. It was great being able to block in areas that would get further work in a future steaming- this is not something I could do a lot with when depending on separating spaces with just a gutta line, unless I wanted to allow a lot of white lines.
Here some color defines shapes that will become river and rocks. I used Magic Sizing to coat the silk and then apply the dyes. At this point, I steamed the silk to change the dye application method. 
Now I can use the gutta lines to allow wet-into- wet areas, for the river. I applied the gutta, and then brushed on water, to prepare that area of silk for wet-on-wet application.
After the next steaming, I applied Magic Sizing to put in some dark shapes for foliage. It’s great fun to go back and forth between these methods. However, I can see that I will want to streamline this in the future, as the time spent steaming this painting has started to add up! This work is still in progress, several steamings later…
Let's talk silk painting! 