I also really looked into natural dyes this week. I made about 6 vegetable dyes using two different methods. I used beets, yellow onions, red cabbage, and parsley. I employed the traditional method of boiling the vegetable matter until the colour was extracted. Normally the resulting dye is used as an immersion bath, but since I am mostly painting with them, I saved about a cup of the dye and bottled it to use later. The other method I use is to steep the vegetable matter in alcohol until the colour is extracted. I have not yet been able to compare whether the resulting dye is more potent than the water-based dye from the same vegetable, but the other reason I choose to make both is because of how they act when I paint with them. Water based dyes will spread more easily, run together when two colours are painted next to each other, and dry slowly. Because alcohol has a much more instantaneous evaporation rate, the dye dries quickly, before it has had much of a chance to spread or, I'm guessing, mix with other colours. Although it will still soak into the fabric around the point of contact between the brush and the fabric, the instant evaporation is ideal for creating cleaner, sharper lines. Water based dyes are better for softer looking lines and shapes.
When you create a dye, you're left over with the boiled remains of the vegetable from which you extracted the colour. This waste is still very potent, even though boiling it for longer won't necessarily make your dye stronger. So instead of just throwing it out, I decided to do a bundle dye with the leftovers. I laid out my beets and cabbage in a gradient along the length of my piece of fabric, adding sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to about half of the cabbage because cabbage it contains anthocyanin pigments, which cause it to change colour acording to the pH value of the soil, or in this case, whatever is added to it. When you add an acid to cabbage juice, it will turn more pink, and when you add a base, such as baking soda, it turns blue, green, or yellow, depending on the strength of the base. I was able to achieve sort of a marbled effect of the pre-existing purple colour, as well as blue, green, and yellow.
This bundle was looking really promising. A lot of colour manifested before I even put it on the stove. While it steamed, the contact between the fabric and the string caused an interesting marble vein effect. The colours were very vibrant. I didn't let it boil for too long because some areas were actually starting to lighten. I let it sit for a couple of days, partially because it is advantageous not to unwrap a bundle right away, but also because we had a rainy spell and I wanted to hang it up to dry before unwrapping it. Unfortunately though, this caused the vegetable matter to continue to decompose, so I felt the need to dispose of it before the fabric was able to dry. I unraveled the bundle and the colour was pretty promising, but the fabric was slimy with decomposed vegetable matter, so I needed to rinse it out. Apparently, vibrant as these colours are, they are not very colourfast. After rinsing the fabric out and trying to get the slime off, the vibrant fuschia of the beets was barely visible. Some of the cabbage's purple was left behind, but after a vinegar bath in an attempt to fix what little colour was left, this also was barely apparent. I hung the fabric up to dry and am of course documenting this attempt, but I think I will reuse the fabric to try an immersion bath with these same colours instead, because then it will not need to be rinsed (although it might smell).
Earlier this week, I also prepared a bundle of plant material using the flowers from what I believe is a Camellia Japonica plant. The blooms are palm-sized reddish pink flowers whose petals grow in the same general way a rose's do. Because of the bright colour of the flowers, I thought I would get a lovely pale pink or purple piece of fabric out of it. However, after unwrapping it, it is barely apparent where the petals were on the fabric. I have read that there are just some flowers, no matter how brilliant in colour, that just don't transfer dyes well. Unfortunately, I think Camellia is one of them. I might try this again with some dried petals to see if that works better than petals that are fresh, however, I would also like to look into other types of flowers that work better for this. Silk is also said to be the best fabric for taking natural dyes, with cotton, linen, and wool being second best. I've been using cotton, so I'd really like to get my hands on some silk.
This was technically for another class, a weekly sketchbook assignment in Illustration where we're given a general theme and must produce seven sketches that fit within it. This week was plants, and since I've been working with vegetables for dyeing, I decided to sketch those. I conducted some research on the origin of the colour within the vegetables and sketched out next to them the chemical structures of the types of pigments that produce their colour. I quite like how it turned out so I am including it here because of its relevance to my independent work.
I also revisited my earliest painting, finally progressing to painting the tartan onto her dress. It's very challenging, so I've just gotten the grid of the plaid laid out so far.
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