This week I spent a lot of time experimenting with natural dyes and methods of dyeing. The first thing I tried was bundle dyeing with fresh flowers. The top image was my first attempt, which didn't turn out as prominently as I thought it would. When I tried it again (the bottom image), I used a much smaller piece of fabric and more flowers. Both of these are on bleached muslin, and it occurs to me now that using unbleached muslin might achieve better, or at least different, results.
I also tried to do a bundle dye with other natural pigments. Here is one I laid out using turmeric, black tea, parsley, strawberries, and dark-skin grapes:
As you can see, I tried to make a face, even though I knew that a lot of the colours would bleed through and that the result would probably not be so literal after steaming.
I let it steam for about three hours.
Funnily enough, you can kind of see the face. Creepy.
Meanwhile, I had made my own liquid dyes from boiled parsley (which I unfortunately burnt, but this may have actually helped with the potency of the colour), and from padauk wood, per Russel's instructions. My first try at using them was on a wheat-paste batik pattern:
This is on bleached muslin
The padauk appears rather orange when it goes on, but it dries this beautiful pale red. The padauk dye is alcohol based, which sometimes also creates some interesting effects.
Once it dried I removed the dried wheat paste and rinsed the fabric, mostly to help get some of the stubborn bits of wheat paste off of it and to soften the fabric, which becomes stiff with the dye. The colour, however, doesn't really bleed once the dyes have dried.
Seeing how well the wheat paste works for lines that are even quite crisp, I then tried to use it more figuratively. It is a challenge, though, to draw with the paste, particularly because the second batch I made was thicker, and the whole I cut in my "piping bag" was a little larger and didn't let me produce very fine lines.
Both of these are coloured with alcohol-based turmeric and padauk dyes.
Having been somewhat dissatisfied with the results from the bundle dyes, I tried a different method of transferring flower pigments to fabric. I instead pressed the flowers to the fabric and hit them with a hammer to release the colour. Interestingly, the flowers I used for this piece were bright red. I also tried a white flower out of curiosity, leaving the very subtle cream and yellow mark near the edge of the collar. The collar itself is comprised of marks made by the hammer head against the large, flattened bell of an angel trumpet flower. I then used the padauk dye to draw a face. Despite not having had much control over the face as I was drawing it, I actually really like how this piece turned out.
I also continued my exploration of painting with synthetic dyes on fabric. I again drew, or attempted to draw, the same face as before, but it turned into three completely different portraits. (I just finished these, so they're not dry yet in these photos):
This first one was done on bleached muslin. I found that I have much more control on the bleached muslin verses the natural muslin because it doesn't soak through as easily.
This was on unbleached muslin that had also been rinsed and dried before I started. It bleeds a lot more, so I was careful when I could be to not let the different colours touch too much. What happened with the woman's hair last week was cool looking, but I'm also doing more of these to try to learn how to better control the results.
This one is also on the unbleached muslin, but I made an effort to leave more areas not filled in with this one, and I like this one much better than the other one, as it is not quite as messy (except in the face, although her features are still discernible).
I also painted in one of the canvas drawings I showed last time. Unfortunately, oil paint takes forever to dry so I can't sew into her yet.
Frankly just a little bit frustrated with the painting process of these fabric portraits, I decided to do another one and skip the painting all together, so it's just fabric embroidered onto a drawing on a canvas. For this one I explored a smaller scale, drawing a partial portrait on a 5x7" canvas. This is also the first time I've used multiple fabrics in one piece (it's actually one cotton print and two types of ribbon braid).
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