Sunny Day Dyeing

Solar Dye Jars with flowers from the garden

In my recent post about natural dyeing I mentioned solar dyeing. This is a really simple and easy technique with highly variable results. Essentially it involves filling a jar with fabric and dye stuffs and leaving it in the sun for a month or more.

My first jar

The rusted iron I added turned the water inky black

I tend to take a very unscientific approach to dyeing generally and solar dyeing lends itself well to this way of thinking as living in Cumbria the solar element is highly variable. I really like the unpredictable element of natural dyeing, I've had mixed results from my solar dye jars but as it's such little effort if I'm not happy with the results I can just stick it in another jar with a different set of leaves or flowers and try again. One of the main attractions is the funny marks and leaf traces that are left on the fabric.

Unwrapping my first solar dye jar

Beautiful patterns on the fabric

I've mostly been using cotton fabrics and silk organza for my experiments as these are the fabrics I use most in my work. The silk takes the colour much more readily than the cotton, even when a mordant is used, so I think my future experiments may involve using different types of silk fabric.

Sorrel leaves sandwiched between cotton and silk

In the jar with more sorrel. The fabric ended up a mink brown colour, much stronger on the silk than the cotton

A selection of jars at different stages

Some of the most successful pieces have been the ones where I've added bits of metal to act as mordants. When iron is used it alters the colour quite dramatically, creating rust tones (not surprisingly) and also lovely grey tones and turning the water an inky black colour. I have a rusty hammer head that I found in the garden that is my favourite thing to add into my jars, it's quite well rusted so gives lovely black tones rather than oranges.

Iron and geranium on silk (left) and cotton (right)

Iron and geranium on silk (left) and cotton (right)

Dock leaves on silk (left) and cotton (right)

I've been using a range of different plant materials to dye with, I love walking round my garden, picking leaves, flowers and twigs and wrapping them in fabric. I should really document what goes into each jar but it's much more fun just leaving it and being surprised by the results!

Feather Sketchbook

Sample detail from Feather sketchbook

I recently posted about the folding sketchbooks I like to make and following on from this I thought I'd share one of my finished sketchbooks with you. I worked on this book early this year and it's an exploration of feathers.

Work in progress

Words associated with feathers

Paper cutting experiment

Like most of my sketchbooks there is a combination of drawing, sampling and writing, both about ideas and about feathers directly. The sketches are mixes of observational drawings and ideas of pieces of work I'd like to make or am thinking about making.

Partially opened up sketchbook

Front cover (cyanotype and stitch)

Front cover (detail)

Working in a sketchbook allows me to collect all my thoughts and ideas together and to try things out. A lot of the textile processes I use are very labour intensive and time consuming. Testing out ideas on a small scale in my sketchbook can often mean that I can work out whether an idea will work and whether it's likely to be worth investing the time and energy or not!

Page details

Page details

Page details

Page details

I'm not generally precious about my sketchbooks, this means that I tend to be willing to try things out and not worry too much. Working in this low pressure way can often mean that new ideas pop up which I then have the option to explore or record and come back to.

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages

Fabric Painting at Wiggonby School

Painting Flowers

This is another of my 'catching up' posts! Last year I spent a lovely day at Wiggonby School doing felt-making with Key Stage 1. They must have enjoyed it too as I was very pleased to be asked back again, this time to work with the whole school. They chose to do some fabric painting and as it was close to Mothers Day they wanted something the children could take home. I decided that teaching them some different techniques that they could combine to make flower pictures would be a good option.

I chose to share two different methods of fabric painting, one to create a background and one to create flowers, that could be combined effectively to make a piece of floral textile art for the children to take home. As often happens, the best laid plans don't always work out so although I had time to do both types of fabric painting with both KS2 (in the morning) and KS1 (in the afternoon) we didn't have time to put the pieces together. I tend to avoid painting in most of my workshops for the simple reason of drying time. Although we had a great time and I think most the students enjoyed it and learnt something it is frustrating not being able to finish something because it's not dry (that and finding space to dry 60+ pieces of fabric!)

The first technique I showed the students was using watered down paint on wet fabric to create abstract, watercolour like backgrounds. We talked a bit about colour theory and I encouraged them to choose one primary colour and one of the complementary colours including that primary (e.g. blue and green or blue and purple) and to see how many variations they could get using just those two colours. Choosing colours this way also helps prevent all the colours being mixed together into a brown sludgy mess! We added a bit of detail to our watery backgrounds by flicking thicker paint on top, always a fun method of painting and good to help loosen up those students who can get a bit stuck with fear of getting it wrong.

The second technique I showed the students was using the fabric paint more thickly and blending the colours on the fabric (again choosing two colours that would not create brown) to create flowers. We did this on a separate piece of fabric so that when the paint was dry the flowers could be cut out and stuck onto the watercolour backgrounds to create a unique piece of art. This was the bit that I didn't get to do with the children as the fabric wasn't dry in time!

One of the things I find really interesting as I'm working with different groups and in different places is people's different perceptions of what is 'good' art and in schools in particular this often means neat and realistic. One of the things I try and encourage in all my students is a willingness to try things and take risks. Creativity is not always about getting it right, it's about trying things and finding solutions to challenges.

I often find that the students who I'm told are 'really good at art' are not the most creative, they are often technically skilled but are also often quite set in their ways and unwilling to try new things as they've found a way that works and is perceived as good so why would they do something different. This was particularly noticeable amongst the older students, when we moved onto the second technique and I asked them to sketch out some flower shapes I was met with the familiar line of 'but I can't draw.'

There are lots of arguments about drawing and the 'I can't draw' scenario and the blame is often laid at teachers doors for not being supportive or encouraging enough, however, I've never found evidence of this in a primary school. I'm inclined to agree with Joanna O'Neil (whose drawing workshop 'Sonnets and Shopping Lists' I attended at Cumberland Embroiderers Guild last year) who believes it's down to personal perception; at a certain point children realise that their drawing does not match the object they are drawing. Their perception and understanding exceeds their technical ability, for some people this is an almost insurmountable block to carrying on with drawing.

Overall it was a very enjoyable day, we had a lot of fun painting and some of the students who thought they weren't so creative found out they were and we produced some beautiful effects.

Life Drawing 16th May 2017

Blind Drawing

For this session we had a model who used to pose quite regularly for us when I started running the sessions but since we swapped days (2 or 3 years ago) hasn't been able to model as frequently. I was really pleased she could make this session as she is one of my favourites to draw with lots of interesting curves. As a former rugby player she can also hold some unusual poses which is always interesting and a challenge.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line. Layered drawings

Pen, continuous line

I've not been doing much drawing at all recently, I've been focusing on other things (mostly dyeing) and I've also been a bit 'at sea' creatively, lacking focus and direction. Life drawing is really helpful when I'm creatively stuck as it gets me drawing and thinking. I've written a lot about the benefits of drawing and one of the key benefits for me is that helps stimulate my creative thought process.

Graphite

Pencil

This evening I had another go at a shaded pencil drawing but even as I was working on the drawing I was thinking about why I don't normally draw like this! I'd sketched the basic pose out before I started shading and I found that what I actually really liked about my drawing was the delicacy and insubstantial nature of the sketch rather than the form of the shaded sections. Once I start adding form the drawing becomes heavier and more real with less room for the imagination, which is (in my opinion) the appeal of the sketchy line drawing.

Blind Drawing

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

One of the other benefits of life drawing when I'm a bit stuck is that it's good to work with other artists and see how they approach things. I love seeing everyone's work at the end of a session and how we all have totally different styles and approaches. I'm often inspired by this part of the session to try something different and it's also interesting (and reassuring) to hear about what other artists struggle with and what excites them about drawing.

Blind Drawing

Blind Drawing

Blind Drawing

One aspect of my drawing that I'm really happy with at the moment is how my 'blind' drawings are developing (drawing without looking at the page at all.) I find it a great way to help me understand and map out a pose, especially if it is a pose I'm struggling with. I'm finding now that my blind drawings are starting to become quite accurate, sometimes more so than my other drawings. It can also produce some quite comical results!