The warm sunny days we were having last week whispered to me that I should be setting up my wet studio in the basement--and so I began to do some experimenting while I was deciding logical places for all the paraphernalia I had brought along from PA. Many of my experiments could not be placed in the successful category and a couple were even in the frustrating category. But I did have some learning breakthroughs, particularly with sun-dyeing. Perhaps the biggest achievement was the reminder to myself that following directions is sometimes worthwhile. I had been relying on my memory of what I had done before but found my notes on the process and made a couple of discoveries:
1. Don't use opaque Setacolor paint; only the transparent works.
2. Thin paint is best: add water in a 2-to-1 ratio. Thick paint does not produce a darker result; the migration of the paint makes it darker and it needs to be thin to move.
And I actually got some patterning--
I'm not wild about the color, but the images are clear--and that wasn't happening last summer when I tried this.
I am happy with this one, which was the result of some scrunching and some mixing of colors. Now I am ready for a project with grand-kids!
And to round out the week I dyed some shimmery silk for a current project. This just glows when I work with it.
That's a project that I have planned to do with my grandkids this summer too! We will have to compare notes!
ReplyDeleteNice! I have to keep reminding myself of those facts too, especially "thick paint does not produce darker results!"
ReplyDeleteI have to keep reminding myself those notes too, especially, "thick paint does not result in darker result!"
ReplyDelete