i know i have already posted about my recent excitement over discovering the origins of some of the early natural pigments. this interest has lead me onto a side project involving dyeing. as it turns out, the history of dyes and (painting) pigments have quite a bit in common, and in many cases a pigment for paint can be made from a dye.
i also find it rather interesting that while dyers have retained much of the old knowledge of natural dyes, and the practice of making one's own natural dye is still rather popular... painters have not retained much of this knowledge at all. A good amount of it is documented, but i don't know any painters who actually know the stuff, and certainly none who have bothered to actually make their own paint. i think it's quite odd, considering how much the histories of dye and (painting) pigments have in common.
and i suppose it makes me a rather odd painter to be going so far out of my way to figure it out and try to do it. i am being safe about it - many of the painting pigments come from hazardous sources... orpiment, for example, is a lovely yellowish rock (which i can buy at my local rock shop), but the part of that rock that makes such a lovely shade of yellow paint is ARSENIC. needless to say, it's not going to be a wise project to start grinding up orpiment in my studio any time soon. (i have ordered a chunk of orpiment to place on a shelf in my studio and look at from time to time, though. why not? if i'm not going to lick it, i don't think there's much harm in it) ;)
but alas, my quest for the lost knowledge of how to make my own oil paint has lead me into the world of dyeing. it is perhaps the safest way i've read about to create my own paint. i have two, maybe three projects in mind for actually producing paint as a final product. i've purchase seeds for indigo tinctoria, the type of indigo plant most often used to produce indigo dye. it took me ages, but i did finally find all of the information i need to produce dye from the indigo plant, and then pigment from that dye, and then oil paint from the pigment. i'm also intending to produce madder rose paint. i ordered whole dried madder root, which is now sitting in my studio on a shelf just waiting for me to bust into it over winter break. (i bought rather than grew in this case, because it would take a minimum of 3 years of tending to the plant before the roots were ready for harvest - and lets face it, i can be impatient at times) ...it will take several days, but i do have complete instructions on going from madder root to dye, dye to pigment, and pigment to oil paint. the third project i have in mind will require a bit of research. I'm not sure just how practical it would be - but i'm interested in working with cochineal. i do currently have in my possession some concentrated natural cochineal dye powder. i have definite plans for using it to dye a wool scarf red. just not sure yet how practical it will be to turn it into paint. we'll see! either way the cochineal will all have to be purchased rather than produced on my own, because it comes from a parasitic insect that lives on cacti in Mexico. Although a trip to Mexico sounds AWESOME, i tend to doubt they would let me go and harvest enough of my own bugs to produce my own cochineal... nor would i really want to. i have a feeling it would start to feel rather cruel to crush so many of them. (grossed out yet? you very likely have your own experience eating cochineal red, since it is used commonly as a food coloring. check food labels for words like cochineal or carmine, or variants of those words - they're all the same thing i've been talking about: parasitic bugs from cacti. chances are good that you've eaten something that contains it)
at any rate, while i'm waiting for the right timing to work on my madder and indigo projects, i'm going to experiment with some dyeing projects. the madder and indigo projects (seen through to pigment and paint) will take some time to complete. the madder I can do over winter break, but the indigo will nave to wait until next fall most likely, since i'll need to wait until spring and summer to even grow the stuff... but the dyeing i can do immediately in my kitchen. a few trips to various local markets for simple supplies, and i'm ready to dye something over the course of a weekend. the only hitch in this plan is what to dye! i've read that natural fibers such as wool, silk, & cotton take the dye the best. i could just buy a bunch of cotton t-shirts, but come on, how cool is that? not very, considering i'm not a huge t-shirt fan. especially not a plain single color t-shirt. boring.
i do, however, own an obnoxious scarf collection (at last count i owned over 30 scarves)... so scarves were a natural choice for the dyeing project. the problem being that they're not readily and easily available in plain white 100% wool or cotton. silk maybe, but i haven't seen any recently.... so my side project of dyeing has taken me on another side project of learning to knit. if i can't buy it, i might as well make it. so i've bought cheap, plain, white, cotton yarn, and i've knit my first scarf. here's a picture:
next up, i'm dyeing it! it's currently sitting in a mordant bath of alum. (alum is aluminum sulfate, and mordant is just a dyeing term for preparing a particular fiber to absorb the dye better). i'm going to let it sit in the alum mordant until i can get to the actual dyeing business tomorrow evening. i'm going to do the actual dyeing with fresh beets. i've read (and heard from my new source at Fibers Etc in Tacoma, who has firsthand experience with it) that the beet dye is going to turn a gorgeous purplish red, but that it's going to quickly fade to a pinkish gray. despite the somewhat depressing fade to gray i'm going to end up with, i'm determined to go ahead with my beet project anyway. if nothing else, i don't think i own any gray scarves yet (if you can believe that with my 30+ scarves). i'll post photos of the initial beet red, and the resulting fade to gray as it happens.
stay tuned!
the knitting itself was quite fun. i've also purchased some wonderful 100% wool yarn at Fibers Etc. in Tacoma, and am looking forward to more scarves soon. i've also read (and heard from those with experience) that the wool will take the color more readily than the cotton will. i'm intending to dye a skein of it with the cochineal before knitting it into my next scarf. perhaps i'll also bother to learn a new knitting stitch for the next one. considering that i barely know what i'm doing when it comes to knitting - it would probably make a more interesting scarf if i take the time to learn more. i'll post photos of the cochineal project when i get to it, too. i'm very excited about that one in particular! the color should be much more colorfast than the beet red, too!
No comments:
Post a Comment