Cochineal

I collected some cochineal off of cactus at a friend's house last week. Here it is cooking in a tin-lined copper pan.



And here it is after sitting overnight. Much deeper color.



This is fabric simmering in the dye.



I've heard that you get a better color when the cochineal bugs are dried, but I don't know why.

More Ecoprint Work

I'm playing around with more ecoprint piece layouts.



This one is 36" x 48", and the materials are eucalyptus bark, indigo, oxalis flowers, and pomegranate rind on hemp and linen.

I'm sending the backing fabrics off to be stretched tomorrow, and they should be back in a week or so.

First Ecoprint Piece

Here's the layout for my first finished ecoprint piece. I tried stitching the pieces to the backing, but I didn't like the look of it, so I'm going to glue instead. That means that it will have to be stretched before I can glue.



It's 30" x 30", and the materials are brown onion skins, eucalyptus bark, pomegranate rind, iron and black pigment on hemp and linen.

New Work

These are two pieces of linen I recently dyed and painted. The first was ecoprinted using brown onion skins and then painted with black pigment in a soy milk binder.



The second piece was ecoprinted using liquid amber leaves and then dyed with eucalyptus leaves, bound with bulldog clips.



I'm going to start putting these and other pieces together into finished work pretty soon.

Mordanting

Here's the boring part -- mordanting the linen and waiting for it to dry. I'm mordanting in alternating dips of soy milk and baking soda. The soy milk is because the plant dyes bond with protein molecules, and the baking soda is because they adhere better in an alkaline environment.



I'm doing several dips each of soy milk and baking soda, so it takes quite a long time just to prepare the fabric before dyeing.

Wool Wrapping

I steamed some more ecoprints the other day, and wrapped the cotton cloth in wool felt. The piece of felt has more color and looks more interesting than the prints!



I can't figure out what happened. Did the wool suck color out of the cotton? I'm sure there's an important discovery here; I just don't know what it is yet!

UPDATE: I just realized that the plant dyes have an affinity for protein, and wool is a protein fiber. The wool did suck all of the dye out of the cotton. So much for using wool as wrapping.

pH Balance

I'm playing around with the pH of the fabric, trying to replicate the ecoprints on paper. For these, I soaked pima cotton in a baking soda solution to make it more alkaline. I'm getting closer, but not quite there yet. The baking soda diluted in water was a pH of 10.

This is Sumac leaves:



And this one is Toyon leaves:

Ecoprints on Paper

I'm working on a sketchbook for the Art House Sketchbook Project, and I did some ecoprints on paper. It's a 4" x 6" watercolor sketchbook, and the leaves print beautifully on watercolor paper. I get more yellows on the paper than I do on cotton or linen fabric, and I'm wondering why. Could it be the acid content of the paper or something?

This first one is mulberry leaves:



I don't know what type of tree these leaves are from. I'm going to have to look it up.



This is eucalyptus:



Rose-scented geranium:



And Liquid Amber, a type of maple tree:

New Ecoprints

Here are some new ecoprints that I unwrapped the other day. I don't know what kind of tree these first leaves were from, but they sure print well.



This one is fallen leaves from a Mulberry tree.



And this is fallen leaves from the Evergreen Pear trees in my backyard.



All on linen.

Success!

Woo hoo! I finally got the ecoprint process down, at least for Liquid Amber leaves. This first print was done with terrycloth padding, to press the leaves more tightly against the fabric.



This one was done without the padding. It's a very different look.



Both of these pieces were done on cotton. Now that I've got it down, I'm moving on to linen!

Bundles Unveiled

I finally unwrapped the bundles. Mostly the results are pale, except for this one piece of cotton wrapped and steamed with Liquid Amber leaves:



It wasn't even a real piece. I was just using the cotton to wrap this handwoven piece, and the handwoven piece didn't turn out as well:



Go figure. I don't know why the other Liquid Amber pieces are more pale. Could it be that the handwoven piece provided more cushioning and a tighter wrap than an ordinary piece of fabric? Back to the drawing board!

Waiting

Patience is not my strong suit, and it makes me crazy that I can't open up these steamed bundles and take a peek at what's going on inside. It's another week, at least, before I can unwrap them.



From left to right, they are brown onion skins and purple onion skins on soy painted linen, Liquid Amber leaves, eucalyptus leaves, Liquid Amber leaves, fennel leaves, and Liquid Amber leaves on linen dyed with pomegranate rind.

Untied Caps

I untied the eucalyptus seed pod caps and the rusty bottle caps today, and the results are below:






I also did another steamed piece yesterday, and unwrapped it this morning. The purple is dead and dried daylily flowers, and the brown strips are eucalyptus bark.



The piece below is purple and brown onion skins.



I'm starting to get a feel for this!

Steamed Caps

Here are the eucalyptus seed caps and the metal bottle caps after being steamed and sitting for a day. Not quite ready to be untied and opened yet.



The edges of the metal bottle cap fabric were dipped in pomegranate dye, giving the gold color.

Tied Caps

This is eucalyptus seed caps tied up in cotton and ready for steaming. Then they have to sit for a while before I can untie the bundle and see what it looks like.



The grouping below is metal bottle caps tied up in linen and waiting to rust.

Kakishibui Shibori

Here's the eucalyptus leaf print with kakishibui shibori on top. It's still more subtle than I would like. I'm working on bringing out the colors more.

Better Eco Prints

I'm getting better at the eco prints. The first two were steamed -- eucalyptus, and liquid amber leaves -- and left to sit for a week.






The bottom print is eucalyptus leaves rolled up, left to sit for a week, and kept moist -- no steaming. The dark edges are eucalyptus dye boiled in an iron pot, which makes it a dark brown.



I'm in the process of doing a second layer on these pieces using kakishibui (unripe persimmon dye) and copper in vinegar.

Rust Dyeing

These stars were created with rusty metal stars from a windchime my mom had. I folded wet canvas around the rusty stars and let it sit for two days. Kind of interesting, huh?

Eucalyptus

I'm playing around with the eucalyptus dye, and folding and clamping with the bulldog clips again.



The hardest part of this work is control, or at least having enough control to have a reasonable idea of how the piece will turn out. The next hardest part is figuring out what to do with all of the pieces after they're dyed and printed! I'm thinking some sort of layering, but I'll have to play around with it and see what looks good.

This piece might look good with a black arashi shibori overdye, huh?

First Eco Print Unveiled

Here's the evergreen pear leaf print that has been sitting for several days after being steamed. Nice colors, but not the clear leaf definition I was hoping for.



Now I'm trying some other leaves on fabrics with different mordants to see what works. I steamed them two days ago, but they still have to sit a while to develop their pattern. I peeked at one, and so far the peach leaf and the rose-scented geranium seem to have the most promise. The rose-scented geranium has the added advantage of making the whole bundle smell good!



This is a piece that I folded and dyed with eucalyptus bark. It's a lovely reddish-brown. The light rectangles and black spots are from the bulldog clips I used to clamp it.



I kind of like the way that it gradates from light to dark. The darker end was on the outside of the clamped bundle, and the lighter end was inside. Once it dries, I think I'll fold or tie it into a different pattern, and overdye with nettles, hoping to get a good green.

Eco Print

I'm doing my first hot process eco print. The cotton fabric was pretreated with an alkaline mordant, in this case tea. The evergreen pear leaves were pressed in a book so they stay flat and have good contact with the fabric.



Then the fabric was rolled up and secured with rubber bands.



The bundle was steamed for an hour, and now it sits for at least several days, possibly several weeks.



I'll check it periodically to see how it's progressing, and show you the results when I decide that it's done!

Solar Discharge Update

I opened up the solar discharge piece, and here's how it looks:



It took several months of sitting in the sun to discharge the spiral pattern. Definitely not a fast process, but a lot less toxic than bleach.

Solar Discharge

I'm back to working with natural dyes and pigments, inspired by India Flint's new book, Eco Colour. I highly recommend this book, but it's only available in Australia, so you'll have to order it from there.

Look at this solar discharge piece in process. I tied up a piece of dyed cotton canvas into a spiral bundle, and I'm letting the sun fade one side of it. Here's the unfaded side, or the "before" picture, so to speak:



And here's the faded side, or the "after" picture:



It's been sitting in the sun for about a month now, and I think it should be ready to open in another week or so. Stay tuned!

Solar Dyeing Experiments

I've been experimenting with solar dyeing -- using the heat and energy of the sun to dye fabrics rather than boiling or simmering them using electricity or gas.

Lots of yellows in this batch of pomegranate rind, yellow dock root, and juniper berries:

Some materials work really well with solar dyeing, like this batch of pomegranate rind with a little copper added from an oxidized copper pipe:

Other materials don't work well, like these carrot tops which don't appear to be emitting any color at all:

Thus the need for experimentation!