Excerpted
from
The Best of Silk Painting
by Diane Tuckman
and Jan Janas
 Wanda Baxter paints
yardage for art to wear, using vibrant and richly saturated steam-set dyes. The yardage is stretched on long boards attached to saw horses. Wanda develops the ideas in her mind, and she starts by painting the light colors, wet-on-wet with foam brushes. Toward the end she works wet-on-dry to take advantage of the dark edge line that
develops when layering. After waiting 24 hours, she steams the fabric for 3 hours and waits for a day--or up to a week--before rinsing to give the colors a change to "cure" and avoid
bleed outs. "For this gossamer silk painted garment [Lattice of Chocolate], I wanted to create an overall ground for the flowers on the
lattice. The crème colored silk provided that ground and allowed the light to shine through the lattice, while
leaving as much of the natural  color as possible. Kim Gaynor is my team partner. She is responsible for the designing, pattern making, cutting , and sewing of all my garments. She developed fifty
body styles to use for my painted fabrics.
"The success of...[Garden Wear] comes from the exquisite details in the finishing. The jacket is quilted with batting and contrasting welt cording used all around the garment. The matching painted fabric for the slacks completes the outfit."
WANDA BAXTER fist sketched the basic subject for Play It Again in black ink and water-based resist. The fabric was then
stretched and painted vertically with brilliant, durable steam-set dyes. Painting
techniques involved layering, wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry.  The loose, casual coloring technique reflects
jazz improvisation. Wanda is very careful to use the right size brush, no too overloaded with dye, otherwise the dye spreads too quickly. Wanda adds details with the black pen over dry fabric to avoid
bleeding. The fabric is then steam set, rinsed, ironed and stretched onto
foam core board--ready to frame. "I am a jazz fan. We attend several concerts and festivals year. [The] 'Jane Jarvis Jazz Invitational' invited me to display my work in St. Petersburg, Florida. I did a series of jazz characters for this event. This piece was chosen for auction as a donation for the scholarship fund."
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