In this week, nothing was better than eco print! Natural dyeing and eco printmaking process as an organic creation are always very close to each other in art creativity. Every single season of the whole year are stunning but for an eco dye artist summer is most powerful. In that particular point of the year plants has a biggest powers to share theirs rich colours. After a years of so many eco print experiments i finally got my perfect. The point is in a process. Never be impatient. Always use dedicated mordants for particular kind of material. Unfortunatley not enough knowledge of that processes mostly gives an unwanted resoults. Wool......felt......eco printmaking What is the most important for me? Create as much as I can for my projects. In this case I realised to print on my own felted wool. First of all I bought raw sheep wool, very dirty, with amazing smell of lanolin. Then I wash it in a warm water and a bit wool friendly wash liquid (not very low or very high Ph) When wool was properly washed by hand of course and rinse then was a drying process on a rack in my boiler room. when wool was completely dry I started carder it. Carding is a mechanical process of disentangles, intermixes and cleans. (Word carding is from latin carduus what is mean thistle or teasel). This is my beloved instruction how to properly do this amaizing job. Every ocassion is a great opportunity to do something new. Drop spindle, absolutely amazing process of hand made yarn... what i am going to do with that? i am pretty sure that most of yarn i will use for a dyeing and then for future creation. This is very useful instruction how to spin on a drop spindle.
0 Comments
Thinking about my previously found algae, I am also intrigued by the natural dyeing. That amazing process is stunningly beautiful. And the beauty is in unpredictability of that organic changes. By using a different mordants we can achieve quite different results. Mordanting is so important to make a fabric more sensitive for a absorption a new colour. When I need more dark colours I usually use more iron in my dyeing experiments, when I need more greenish I focus to use more copper solution. Some different method is metal oxidation for fabric dyeing process. The best results are with copper as a verdigris and iron as a rust. We are also able to manipulate the strengthens of thats processes, using hydrogen peroxide, salt, acids etc. Copper oxidation dyeing. Natural dyeing process I spent the last days on intensive searches for inspiration...
Some early morning during my first at that day walk with my dogs I notice some very important, there were so many algae that the sea threw out during a storm. One of them was so intrigued me that I decided to take it home for a later examination. Time to start experiments!!!
Finally the most exciting time, without making a hard decisions, which artist should I pick.... First experiment is based on a structure of the fabrics. Different materials react difrently in our environment. Cotton, wool, synthetic after treating with hot air effects are completely different. This resoults allow different interpretations of the idea and wide range of expressing myself. Till now, I have been working mostly with natural fabrics. A big surprise is working with synthetics, the resoults are amazing. The most important!!! The fumes are toxic!!! Always wear a mask to work with the fire and synthetics!!! Current week abounds in thoughts on the artistic work of selected artists. They operate many different artistic techniques which I would like to examine. Reserching a specific technique I would like to modify them and create new ones for my final project. In a second week I am considering which artists I choose among the many I love... Hard decision. Artists who inspired natural form in a textile field; Debbie Lyddon, Susie Gillespe, Cas Holmes, Velda Newman, Lesley Richmond, Healy and Burke, Heather Collins. Designers inspired natural form; Katie Scott, William Morris, Lucy Auge, Isla Middleton. I am going to explor Natural Form as a continuation of my last Graded Unit from 2017. In contrast to the previous art examinations, present exploration will be on a textile field. Why this theme? Where I finding an inspiration to my present theme? The best is on the hand distance from my self. My country, my environment are to beautiful to try not to notice an infinite beauty around. |