Art in progress... Glacial Recession Part 4

So I've been busy creating lately which is totally awesome!! Since we got back from vacation (don't worry, I'll get back to my pictures and posts of the trip as I alternate between projects) I've gotten back into the studio and have been working full-steam ahead on my "Glacial Recession" piece. So, four months after I did the first three timelapses (see the others here, here and here), I've finally uploaded another one. The first two sections were shot in February and the last ones were done this past week.


I've finally achieved the look I want using salt and the dyes to create texture, and I am even re-designing the bottom part of the piece. Actually, I'm not really sure I can call it a re-design, considering I didn't really have a plan for it in the first place. This past winter, I forced myself to move ahead, working on the sky first, without worrying about the bottom. Sure enough, as my dear friend Mindy says, the piece spoke to me - it finally told me what it is supposed to look like. It's going to require more fabric and more dyes, so I know what I'll be doing.

Here are some of my first pieces of fabric that show the wonderful texture I've been getting with the salt:

 Procion MX Reactive dyes: Cerulean, Lemon Yellow, and Sky Blue

Procion MX Reactive Dyes: Lemon Yellow, Sky Blue, and Cobalt

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Potato Resists

Today I demonstrated how to do the potato resist for a bunch of friends and since I did not have the directions printed out for them and could not truly finish the sample in one day, I promised to post them here. So here goes:

1. Put two cups of water in a sauce pan and bring it to a simmer, then add 1 cup of mashed potato flakes (I got the cheapest plain stuff at HyVee). Stir constantly until smooth - about 3-5 minutes - then add 1 Tbsp liquid starch and 1/3 or 1/2 cup water, stir until smooth. Then take it off the heat and allow it to cool. I kept it overnight in the refrigerator so it would not mold.

2. (You may skip this step if you already keep some print paste on hand.) To make print paste (what you mix the dye into), mix 9 Tbsp urea in 1 quart warm water. Separately, mix about 5 Tbsp sodium alginate with enough rubbing alcohol to make it look like wet sand. Gradually mix the sodium alginate & alcohol into the urea-water. This works best with a mixer, but it's not impossible without it. It will thicken as it sets up. (The alcohol helps to keep it from molding. It is recommended to keep it in a refrigerator, but I have left mine out for over a year now and it's still fine.) I am suggesting this step now because that will give it time to thicken before you need it.

3. Stretch out your PFD fabric on your print surface.

4. Spread the potato-starch over your fabric, not going all the way to the edges, but covering the whole surface. At this point, it is up to you to decide where to make areas thicker than others, or to draw other spaces into the potato where the dye will penetrate. Next, you leave the potato to dry completely. A fan helps, and the faster it dries, the less it will mold. But even if it molds, it's not a big deal.

5. Once the potato is dry, it will have a crackle texture. If you want more crackle, roll or crumple it up and then re-stretch it back onto your printing surface. Mix your dye and print paste. I used 2 tsp dye powder (Midnight Blue) in about 1/8 cup of water, then mixed it with about 1 cup print paste (you will feel like you are mixing and mixing and nothing is happening until "poof" you made it to the magic moment).

6. Mix in your soda-ash activator (you do not need to do this if you pre-soaked your fabric in soda ash). About 1 tsp soda-ash and a little bit of water can then be mixed into the dye-paste. Know that the moment the two mix, the dye is activated and will gradually get weaker, so be prepared to use it after you once again meet that magic moment. I don't like it to be too thick at this point, so might add some water so that it spreads easier, but there's a fine line since you don't want it to be too runny either.

7. Spread the activated dye paste over the dried-potato-covered fabric until it is about even all over. As you spread, the potato will soften and be able to detach, so be careful as you are spreading. You can cover the fabric then with some saran wrap and let it sit, or simply let it dry. Realistically, it probably doesn't need to sit for more than an hour, but I usually leave all my dyes to sit for about 24 hours anyway.

8. Set your fabric in a bucket of water and allow the potato to dissolve off. (I usually dump this in the toilet rather than putting it down the drain.)

WARNING:
Make sure to follow precautions when using dye and other chemicals. For powder chemicals, always work in a well-ventilated area, wearing a dust mask and gloves. When working with liquid chemicals, wear rubber gloves (this includes the rinsing process).

Other Notes:
Fabrics that work best for this process are cottons. Silk will work, but you do not want to pre-soak it in soda-ash because bases will break down the silk fibers. For initial tests, I like to use inexpensive unfinished muslin (dyer's cloth if you get it from JoAnn). If you want to use fabrics with a finish (permanent press, sizing), you will need to cook it in muratic acid to remove those finishes (this is a toxic process requiring great ventilation, a cooking space not used for food, and good chemical gloves).

These notes were specifically written for using instant mashed potatoes, but you will get different results using other products, like potato dextrin, which you can get from DharmaTrading or ProChemical & Dye. I used the dextrin before trying the mashed potatoes, and the main difference in the process is that in step one, you simply boil a cup of water, add 1 and 1/3 cup dextrin powder and mix. No starch and no cooking of the powder mixture is necessary. Here are images of the results using dextin instead of instant potatoes:

All images copyright Katrina Boles

Dyes, Dyes, and more Snow Dyes!

Though I did not continue to begin snow dyes on the last snow day, I could not stay out of the studio for long. With the next batch, I used only 2 cups of snow and half the dye solution from the "Black Magic" chart in Adrienne Buffington's book. The gradation from a light cerulean blue to a darkened blue with the addition of black. Each quart-sized bag contained one fat quarter of pima cotton soaked in soda-ash. I varied how I added the dyed snow to the bags, but it didn't make a ton of difference in the final fabrics anyway, as you can see:

Though I also really liked the first process for creating dyed fabric using snow, I was less thrilled by the waste of dye and the lightness of the final fabric, so in this next pair, I used what was left from the black magic gradation (about 5 tsp of cerulean blue solution), diluted it two times and poured that over the snow. In my setup, however, I decided to put a fat quarter of soda-ash soaked pima cotton in the bottom of the bucket before putting the grate over the bucket and another piece of soda-ash soaked pima, which had the snow and dye over top. Here are images from the process and the final outcome:

All images copyright Katrina Boles

Snow Dyes Part 7

Yesterday I started another batch of dyes, as I continue to build my array of hand-dyed cottons for future projects, this time a gradation from golden yellow to sky blue. I hate to say it, but I did not particularly like the outcome of these dyes. The colors are not as vibrant as they could be. I suspect the problem is in the amount of soda-ash I failed to add to my solution. I've been using the same bucket of soda-ash water for all these dyes, adding a bit of soda-ash to the bucket when I add water, but in an effort to not be wasteful, continue to reuse what was left from each previous soaking. However, in doing that, I do not know how much soda-ash to add each time. This last time I added very little - about a teaspoon - and I suspect the mordant was too diluted for it to help create the vibrant colors I was hoping for. (Of course it could be the actual colors I was displeased with. While potentially useful, the olive/army green colors were not what I was hoping for.) I also added some salt this time, which, as it turns out, was a bad a idea. Salt is typically used as a dispersant, so it reduces the visual texture from crinkles, folds and other areas where the dye does not reach so readily. As I understand, adding salt to a dyebath helps to accomplish a more even color. I wanted more texture, not less.

Image copyright Katrina Boles

Snow Dyes Part 6

Another winter day where I'm stuck inside...at least today it was bright and sunny, though I didn't see too much of the sun since I spent so much time in the basement. I put more of our 20 inches of snowfall to use today.

Yesterday I started another color progression from Golden Yellow to Fire Red. This time, the fabric dried after being soaked in soda ash, then the snow applied while it lay flat, followed  by scrunching and rolling, otherwise the process was the same as my previous snow-dye progression. Here are the results:

I also began three other pieces, the first with silk and the other two are pima cotton (these were done with dye solution mixed with snow):

The first is mostly turquoise with a bit of sky blue. The second is burgundy and the third eggplant. After a few hours of sitting, I spritzed the cotton fabrics with a bit of leftover watered-down dye because there was still a lot of unwanted white space peaking through. This accounts for the pale spaces on the fabrics. Silk tends to wick the dye, so it did not need any spritzing.

I am working toward having a large range of colors at my disposal for coming projects. I may not know yet what those projects are, but it truly is the dye results that takes my breath away. More snow dyes to come as we have a third snow day tomorrow!!

All images copyright Katrina Boles.

Snow Dyes Part 5

I don't know how much snow we've gotten today, but it's probably at least a foot. With the blizzard and all the closings, it seemed ample opportunity to do some more snow dyes! But first, I'll share some photos of the final curtain pieces that were dyed twice (to see the process, go to part 4). They definitely are not as exciting or successful as all the others done with pima cotton - these were done with unbleached muslin.

On my first weekend of snow dyes, I did a smaller piece of Pima cotton, which I did not write about. However, the outcome of the images is worth seeing. The process of the black dye over snow looked rather interesting once the snow melted, as seen here:

Today I also tried a silk acid dye with the snow, where I mixed some golden yellow dye and a tiny bit of leftover fire red in snow, then put that over a piece of silk that soaked in vinegar. I scrunched it and put it in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Here is a photo of these two pieces of fabric, the silk and the "black" pima:

Also, I overdyed fabric #3 from part 2. The first coloring just didn't come out as vibrant as I'd hoped. But I had much better luck with the second round, which I did by mixing 1 Tbsp avocado with 2-3 cups of snow and put that directly on top of the soda-ash soaked fabric. I let it melt and dry over a screen so that it would not sit in the dye before I rinsed and ironed it.

This afternoon/evening I began some more dyes...stay tuned for notes on those in another post.

All images copyright Katrina Boles.

Snow Dyes Part 4

I so enjoyed doing all the test snow dyes, that I decided to go ahead and attempt to get the yellow to blue gradation I was hoping for our bedroom curtains. I had mixed the dye solution a few weeks ago and decided to use it the same way the first fabric was done, only I wanted to control the colors so they gradate from yellow to blue. Because of the size of the curtain panels, I decided to use a much larger plastic bin and layer them on top of one another with dye between each layer.

The next day, as I started rinsing the fabric, I knew it was too light, so I went right into an over-dye. I did this second one like the fourth "lasagna" fabric, using dye solution mixed in snow. I let the snow start melting on my printing table, and an hour later realized it was dripping all over the floor. Though I had intended to do each panel separately, I decided to layer them on top of one another so that the other panels could soak up all left-over dyed snow. The snow melted within an hour, and I decided to leave them to sit in the dye overnight. Today, they are still wet, so I think I will let them continue to dry out.

Here are views of the process:

Perhaps I will also post images once the panels are finished.

Snow Dyes Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts I've done on snow dyes this weekend. After about 7-8 hours in the basement studio yesterday, today I wanted to rinse out dyes and iron them. I hadn't really intended to do any new ones, but couldn't resist. It's not that we didn't have snow on the ground - there were already about 6 inches - but new snowfall through the course of the morning meant staying indoors and I had so much fun yesterday that I was bound to continue today. I made considerably more of a mess today, but what of it?

I believe I failed to note in my previous posts that I did not find any of the processes any more messy or difficult than the others, but I did find that I preferred the outcome of the dye solution mixed with the snow (see fabric #4), as it yielded more vibrant, darker colors and meant less time wearing a mask outside mixing the dye powder with the snow, which also yielded nice colors (see fabric #2).

Next, I combined a gradient technique that I use very often with snow dying. It is modified from Adrienne Buffington's "Luscious Berries" gradation.


Fabric Batch #5: (6-step progression dye solution in snow)
I set out six buckets and labeled them A-F then added 6 cups of snow to each. I soaked 6 half-yard pieces of pima cotton in a soda-ash solution. I mixed 1/2 T of Fuchsia in 1 c water and 1T Midnight Blue in 1 c water. I then mixed the colors as prescribed in Buffington's book, with the exception that I did not wait to add the second color. Both colors were added at the same time.

In buckets A-D the two colors were mixed into all 6 cups of snow then the fabric was gradually added, turning it over and mixing it all together so that the dyed snow was covering almost everywhere. (This was very messy and cold.) In buckets E-F I split the snow into two cups and each color was mixed separately. The fabric was put in lasagna layers with each color added to each layer. (Much less messy.)

The snow melted for about 8 hours, then I added warm water so that the fabric was totally submerged in each bucket. They sat overnight and were rinsed and ironed dry about 24 hours later.

All photos copyright Katrina Boles
Stay tuned for part 4...

Snow Dyes Part 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, I played in the snow, only in the sense that I used the snow to dye fabrics. In the first post, I showed my results from two techniques I found online. And now I will share two of my other trial techniques.


Fabric #3: (burried in snow)
One-half yard of pima cotton pre-soaked in soda ash solution. The fabric was put into a bucket with about 1-2 inches of snow, more snow was added on top. Then I dribbled an avocado dye solution (1/2 T dye in 1/2 c water) over the top of the snow. It was allowed to melt for 4.5 hours, until I dumped the rest of the snow and rinsed the fabric in synthrapol and ironed it dry. (Because of the lightness of the fabric in the result, I think perhaps allowing the snow to fully melt would make it darker, though perhaps either the total snow diluted the dye or the cold of the snow meant the dye was not heat-activated.)

Fabric 4: (lasagna snow dye)
One-half yard of pima cotton pre-soaked in soda ash solution. In a bucket with about 1 inch of snow at the bottom, I laid about 1/3 of the fabric flat on top. In a cup, I mixed two cups of snow with an amethyst solution of 1 tsp dye in 1/4 c water. I did the same with brilliant blue dye. Next, I added a bit of the snow-dye mixtures, and two Shakes cups worth of snow (about 4 measuring cups). I folded the fabric over and then added all of the amethyst snow-dye solution mixture and two more Shakes cups of snow. Lastly, I folded the last third of the fabric atop and added the brilliant blue snow-dye solution mixture and whatever was left of the amethyst and two more Shakes cups of snow. This was allowed to melt for 10 hours before rinsing and ironing dry.

All photos copyright Katrina Boles
Stay tuned for part 3...

Snow Dyes Part 1

Thursday when I trudged through the 6-8 inches of snow on my way to work I did not bother to think about what I might do with all this white stuff, aside from knowing I probably wouldn't be driving much until it was cleared.

But then, when I awoke on my Saturday morning, curious as to how I would fill my day (my art group get-together got postponed), it dawned on me that I might use the snow to do some much-postponed dyeing. It's been ages since I've been in my studio to do anything other than pilfer items like scissors or paper. All of a sudden, breakfast, showering, and other things of that nature flew from my mind as it raced through ideas of how I might use the snow. I decided the logical first step was to look up techniques that others have tried online. Most of the dyers I came across were placing their pre-soaked fabric on a raised surface, then piling on the snow, then the dye mixture. I also came across someone who tried mixing the powder dye with the snow, but found that to be rather messy.

I had some other ideas too... but I decided to start with the first two suggestions. Here's my process and my end results:

Fabric #1: (dye over snow)
First, I soaked a fat quarter of pima cotton in a soda-ash solution (no salt) for a few minutes as I stretched cheesecloth over a bucket. Then I laid out my cotton fabric, scrunching the edges to make it fit within the bucket's edges. Next I added about an inch of snow. Then I took 2Tbsp of cerulean (mixed five months ago to a solution of 1/2 T in 1/4 c water) and squirted it randomly atop the snow. I decided that left too much white space so I also did the same with cobalt (also mixed five months ago at the same ratio). I let this melt on it's own for four hours in my basement - at about 60 degrees - when I got impatient and took my embossing heat gun to it and melted the rest of the snow.

I rinsed with synthrapol and ironed it dry:

 

Fabric #2: (dye powder mixed into snow)

First I soaked a fat quarter of pima cotton in a soda ash solution for about one hour (I've found that the amount of soaking time really doesn't matter at all, that just happens to be how long it took for me to get test #1 and #2 started.) While the fabric was soaking, I mixed 1tsp Lemon Yellow into 2 cups of snow, 1tsp rust brown in 2 cups of snow, and 1 tsp dark brown into 2 cups of snow. On another bucket with cheesecloth stretched over the top, I laid out fabric #2, scrunching the edges again. Over the top of the fabric, sprinkled the dyed snow in a random pattern. It was left to melt in the basement for about four hours and then was rinsed with synthrapol and ironed dry.

A note about the colors in this second fabric: You will notice that there is green and a purple-ish color in this final fabric. That has to do with the dye mixes. In the Procion MX dyes (used here), rust brown and dark brown are not primary colors, they are a pre-mixture intended to give this color. I knew that this was likely to happen, as some dye particles will bleed out more than others. However, if you notice on the first sample this did not happen. That is because both cobalt and cerulean are primary colors, so they should be pure colors and the only mixing that should occur is between those two. Mixing non-primary colors can yield unintended, and sometimes very interesting results. However, if you are a dyer, and you want a very specific color, I would recommend using only the pure dyes and mixing them to get the color you need.

All photos copyright Katrina Boles

Stay tuned for part 2...