COCHINEAL

the dye.

here's a picture of my cochineal extract. it comes from a parasitic insect that lives on cacti, and it's used today mostly in food coloring, but it has a long history as an important red dye. it was even the dye used to dye the red coats red!... now it's going to dye some wool that i'll use later to make a scarf! i'm really excited about this one. Ever since reading the story behind cochineal in Victoria Finlay's book on color, i've been enchanted with this one. its origin was a very well kept secret for a very long time... and now it's sitting on my stove dyeing a skein of my very own wool! :)

into the dye pot.

just under 2 teaspoons of the red cochineal extract (above) turned my dye water nearly black with super intense dye color! wow!! that's powerful stuff!

the wool.

here's the freshly clean & mordanted wool, waiting to be dunked in the dye bath.

looks like it's taking the color on immediately! can't wait to see how it comes out.

it's sitting in the dye bath now. i'll leave it there over night!

happy friday

today was the best friday i've had at work so far this school year! i was able to go back to Mt. Tahoma for the day (the school i was at last year) - and it was great! i was down at the central office earlier this week to turn in some paperwork, and i just so happened to run into the plant lady (i can never remember what the proper name of her class is) from Mt. T. We had a great time chatting last year when i helped her get something setup on her computer - and we've enjoyed chatting about plants ever since. i've shared all of my plant experiments with her - from my 2 year old butterfly garden to my experimenting with a variety of plant based natural dyes lately. she, in turn, likes to ask my advice on the best way to do small art projects in her plant classes. she was having the kids paint clay pots today, and when she found out that i'm being paid to sit on my ass doing nothing all day, she got the idea to ask my principal if she could borrow me for the day. (my principal being the super awesome guy that he is told us to go for it)

...and so i had a fantastic day, constantly greeting former co-workers in the arts hall, and former students all over the building. so many of the kids were excited to see me and wanted details on why i wasn't there anymore. i tried to make it clear for them that it wasn't my choice, and that i would still really like to be there. (i even promoted my cause by requesting that they call HR and speak to a specific person who is in charge of placing me)... one girl said she'd call from every phone in her house every single day until she gets me back. i told her she'd be my new favorite student if she followed through on it... and knowing her it wouldn't really surprise me if she went to the effort of actually doing it!

one of my proudest moments of the day was seeing a boy i had in class last year (we'll call him J here) - J had a really hard time with math, which i found out when i accidentally walked into the wrong meeting and got to meet with his mom. i shared with him that i have dyscalculia (a math learning disability, yes it's real, and no it's not funny), and i told him that over time i had found a few things that did help me to learn a little better - and that i would be more than happy to do whatever i could to try to help him approach it in a way that would work for him. although he never actually asked me for any specific math help, he always knew that he had the support because i asked him every now and then when he was in my class how he was doing in math. i think just knowing that somebody cared must have helped - because when i saw him in the plant class today and asked him how he was doing, he said it was hard but he was doing better and he had a B!!!!!! in math this year!! i couldn't believe it (last i heard he had a D if he was lucky) ~ i told him i was totally proud of him and that i would brag about him the rest of the day! (i love student success stories!)

another bit of potentially promising(?) news - i already knew that the art classes at Mt. T were way overloaded, but i talked to the head of the art department there and found out that they were still really packed. on my way out of the building i saw the principal there, and mentioned to him that i was still displaced and doing nothing at Wilson, and would absolutely love to come back to Mt. T. i told him that it's been my favorite school (i don't know if he realizes i've been to 4 different schools in the past four years) - and i wasn't just sucking up - it really was my favorite place. i loved a lot of things about that place, and it's a place that i would be comfortable and happy with sending my own kids to.....

THEN on my way home i called the HR lady who is supposedly working on placing me (although considering that it really shouldn't take anywhere near 5 months to place me, i don't actually think she's working on it)... and politely mentioned to her that i had spoken w/ the head of the art department at Mt. T today and learned that their art classes were packed full, and politely told her that i'm curious to know why i'm not being placed back there. (no sense in being rude to the person who has direct control over the fate of your eventual work destination). she told me that she was unaware of the situation (i suspect that may not actually be true, since i've heard through the grapevine that Mt. T had requested more teachers due to overcrowded classes this year - though it's entirely possible that with the lack of organization down there, the message never filtered through specifically to her).... she said that she needed communication from Mt. T's principal regarding the need in their art department.... and so when i got home i e-mailed him and cc'd the head of Mt. T's art department, politely requesting that he (the principal) send her (the HR lady) an e-mail. at worst nothing will come of it... at best i could find myself teaching at my favorite school again! cross your fingers for me! (and don't worry, i was using my hands free bluetooth device for the call i made in the car) ;)

egged devils

i've been playing with eggs! i had several fun goals in mind when i started this project.... i wanted to 1) experiment with using beet juice to dye eggs 2) make deviled eggs because i had a sudden craving for them, and 3) experiment with powdering egg shells to make a white pigment - which i hope to use to try to precipitate some beet dye onto later, experimenting w/ making a beet lake pigment. i haven't seen any evidence that #3 is either possible or advisable - so it's a total experiment that might not even work. we'll see.... but i have photo evidence of #1 & #2 below! :)

i hard boiled about a dozen eggs... some of them are shown below. for about half of them, i cracked the shell after hard boiling, but didn't peel it immediately. i dunked them in beet juice first, which left the marbled pattern on some of them. the ones that are solid magenta are the ones i peeled first, then dipped in beet juice. each egg was in the dye for less than a minute, and i still got a pretty nice color. the color did change over time though. within about an hour, the color visibly absorbed through the egg white (which isn't visible in the 2nd photo, because i took it as soon as the deviled eggs were done), and the color itself changed from magenta to lavender. much less pink, much more purple. weird, and i don't know why - but definitely cool! (i think Harvey is right - i'm quite the color scientist lately... i also like Marilee's term alchemist. that's just plain fun!)

Here's the finished deviled eggs. you can sort of see a hint of the magenta on the outside edge of the egg white in these photos. within an hour, the color had seeped through the entire egg white, and was then visible right up next to the filling! it had also shifted from magenta to lavender by that time! (quite tasty too! - and no, Kim - mine didn't taste like beets at all!)

2nd beet bath results

The results at my 2nd beet dye bath are below! the first one shows the same cotton scarf as before, which i over dyed with the new dye bath - but before i rinsed it. it was a very pretty light pink, but none of it stuck. (see below)

Here are all 3 pieces hanging to dry. From left to right you're seeing the same cotton scarf as above, but rinsed - notice that none of the pretty pink from above hung on to the fibers. it's beige. next is wool dipped in strawberry dye twice. it's a nice brownish orange color. finally, the dark one is wool dyed with the 2nd beet bath. in fact, the cotton and the wool were in the same pot at the same time this time. obviously the wool takes the beet dye far better than the cotton does. close ups of each are below.

here's a closeup of the wool dyed twice with strawberry

here's the cotton scarf, dyed a second time with beet dye, which didn't make much of a difference in color.

and finally, a close up of the wool, dyed with the 2nd beet bath.

blue rocks, green rocks, red rocks, shiny rocks, soft rocks

Here i'm sharing with my wonderful readers my shelf full of treasures! all of the things in the picture, on the shelf below are things that have been used to make pigments! In the first picture, the closest things include a murex shell (murex were used to make the famous, ancient Tyrian purple)... Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan - it's the pretty blue one - in person it's sparkly because of flecks of pyrite, and it's quite pretty! Most of the lapis lazuli that has been used to make lapis lazuli paint (the original ultramarine blue) came from the Afghan mine that my rock is from... and two pieces of turquoise. The small piece is from the famous Sleeping Beauty mine, and the larger more green chunk is from China. (in addition to being used as pigments to make paint, Cleopatra also used both lapis lazuli and turquoise to make eye shadow) :)

The rocks shown in this one are copper (the green formed on the copper was formerly used to make green paint)... behind it is a piece of hematite, which is where red ochre comes from. the hematite is such a soft rock that it leaves a dusting of color on your hand just from handling it. it's easy to see why cave men thought to use it for cave paintings.... the small dark rock behind the hematite is goethite, which is where yellow ochre comes from. it isn't as soft as hematite, but you can get a brownish color quite easily by scratching it. I'm unsure how yellow ochre is actually obtained from it - but i'm looking forward to finding out, as yellow ochre is one of my favorite colors to paint with.... the large black rock in the corner is a natural chunk of graphite! oddly enough the woman who sold it to me told me that a natural piece of graphite can be kind of difficult to find, and in fact i bought the only one she had. graphite is also quite soft, and this rock easily makes marks that look like charcoal marks.

the little envelope you can see in front of the graphite contains indigo tinctoria seeds, the type of indigo plant most often used to produce the pigment and dye. i intend to plant a few in the spring, then process my plants first into dye, then into pigment, from which i can make my own indigo blue oil paint.

Here is aragonite on the left - mine is kind of an earthy reddish color, but aragonite is still used to make white pigment. i have seen pictures of white chunks of white aragonite. i'm not sure what makes some red and some white! ....the flat rock on the right is bauxite, which produces a brown pigment. up close it has lovely spots of different colors. it's quite possibly more interesting as a rock than as a paint.

Next month when I break into my package of madder root to create madder red dye, madder rose pigment & paint - i'll add a piece of the dried root to this shelf. i've also requested a few rocks that my rock shop didn't have on hand. they intend to go looking for them for me in January and February at big shows that happen then. two that i've put in requests for are quite toxic/poisonous, and i had to promise that i wouldn't actually try to grind them up into paint. one is orpiment which makes a lovely yellow, but is full of arsenic. the other is cinnabar, which makes a great red, but is full of mercury! there's a good reason they tell you not to eat paint! ;)

strawberry dye

Below are pictures of my wool skein, dyed pink with natural strawberry dye. It was (of course) a nicer pink before I rinsed it. I did save the dye, and am thinking of dipping it in the dye a second time after it dries to see if I can get a darker color.

In the pic below you can see the section i tied with cotton, and you can see the difference in how well the cotton took the color vs. the wool. I think I'll be dyeing exclusively with wool from now on! :)

dry and gray

my beet dyed cotton scarf is dry, and it's lost most of the initial orange tint. As I expected, it's turned a sort of grayish color, with a bit of a tan/rosy tint. I didn't know how long it would take for my original color to fade to this grayish color - but I didn't quite expect it to go gray quite that fast! I did dry it by hanging it in the bathroom under the heat lamp. it's possible the constant exposure to light sped up the process.

I'm considering preparing another beet red dye bath (minus the alum and vinegar this time) and over dying the scarf to see if I get a more reddish final result. It would most likely still fade to a gray, but I wonder if I could get a more rosy gray, and perhaps a bit darker. best way to find out is to try it, no doubt!

I found some research this afternoon that confirmed what I suspected about the surprise orange my beet dye bath turned. I thought it had to do with either 1) not rinsing the cotton after the mordant bath of alum, or 2) the vinegar i added to the dye bath. turns out it probably had to do with both of them. both additives affect beet dye by turning it orange. The paleness of the dye result is due to it being cotton. I knew this before I dyed it, but cotton doesn't take on the dye color as easily or as well as wool. if I had used wool, I would have gotten a similar color, but it would have been somewhat darker.

Below is a photo showing my dry beet dyed scarf result next to the original cone of white cotton.

I'm currently preparing a skein of 100% wool yarn for dyeing with strawberries. I've seen images of the results with various additives, which is helpful. Turns out that in this case the alum is going to turn it a brighter version of pink than anything else. I'm looking forward to seeing my own result! This time impatience has gotten the better of me, and i'm dyeing the wool before knitting it into a scarf. Lets hope I cut enough yarn for a decent sized scarf! I also have no idea the colorfastness of strawberry dye... lets hope it's better than beets! :)