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At long last, here are a couple of photos of my madder orange dye, a byproduct of my madder pigment project. I had read that you can obtain a brilliant orange dye by boiling the madder.... so I did just exactly what you're not supposed to do with madder dye - I boiled it. (gasp). ~ if you're wondering why this is so taboo - it's because heating madder too hot (above about 50*C) destroys the desirable alizarin colorant in the roots. There are, however, a number of colorants in those roots.
I also used my favorite fiber for this project - it's a wool/alpaca blend. I've used it twice now, and both times it's taken the dye very well. I had also read that the boiled (gasp) madder dye makes the best orange with a tin mordant - and so, as mentioned in my last post, I used a tin mordant for this fiber. I have since bottled my tin mordant and am keeping it in the fridge for next time. I've read that I can keep it indefinitely and just re-charge it with 3/4 of the amount of tin next time I want to use it. It makes things simpler for me (especially now that I have a dedicated dye mini-fridge for my studio), and it keeps my tin out of the water system or my back yard soil, since I'm not dumping it. As it turns out, it is also a fairly economical mordant, as it requires only a very small amount added to the water. I only needed 0.05oz to the water to mordant the fiber for this project.
above is the madder dye simmering (gasp) with my wool/alpaca fiber. I simmered it for a good hour before letting it cool in the pot over night.
I am having a real problem getting a good photo of the color of the finished wool. It is in fact more orange than it shows in this picture. It is indeed a bit earthy, but it is nowhere near as tan/brown as it seems in this photo. It is a definite orange. I have a feeling that if I had used fresh madder and simmered it from that - it would have been a quite intense, bright orange. Probably still a bit earthy, but very intense for an earthy orange would be my guess - and exactly what I had read about.
Weld
After letting my weld soak over night in distilled water, I boiled it for an hour, and then filtered it. I wanted to use my cotton dish towels to filter it, as I had done with the madder - but the one I was looking for had mysteriously gone missing. (I strongly suspect that Mike has something to do with that - and if I find it in a strange place, I'm sure it will turn into a Mike Story). But alas, I couldn't find it, and so I used a coffee filter instead. Which I hated. coffee filters are slow, clog too easy, and the paper becomes pretty weak when it's wet. I found them to be more annoying than anything else.
Here's the coffee filter catching some of the weld leaves and stems. I found it to be such a slow process with the coffee filter that I tried to keep most of the leaves and stems out of the filter, and instead scooped them up (with gloved hands, of course) and squeezed them over the filter to save time. (if you know me, you know how impatient I can be at times) ;)
Here's a shot where you can see the strained liquid below. It looked fairly orange at this point - a lot like tea.
See that dark spot above?? THAT is a big patch of sediment from the weld that made it through my stupid coffee filter. I had to filter the dye three times to get it all out. I still think my cotton towel would have done a better (and certainly faster) job of catching a lot of this. I probably could have gotten away with straining it once through the towel, and then once through filters to achieve a nice clear dye.
I switched to chemical filter papers for the second and third filtering. I went through several of them - but they didn't clog as easy, and strained quite a bit faster than the coffee filters. They're also significantly stronger when wet than the coffee filters are, and don't tear and break so easy. I do like them, and am researching my options for getting some bigger ones. My science friend Tam pointed me to Fisher Scientific, which has a rather large and overwhelming selection of them. I'm fairly sure that an inexpensive, fast flow variety will suit my needs - but even within that category there are a lot of options. (even more options if you ignore the "inexpensive" bit).
I wish I had remembered to take a photo of the dye once I finally filtered all of the muck out of it. It was a nice, clear, golden orange color. I still have half of the weld left, and will try to remember to take a photo of that stage next time I work with it.
The photo below shows what it looked like right after I added the calcium carbonate (chalk). I had read about dyers using a bit of chalk at the end of the heating phase, to "bloom" the color - and it was a real blast to see it for myself! part science, part art - I got to watch it change within seconds from a transparent orange tea-color to a pretty opaque lemon yellow color. Sure the photo below looks a lot like buttermilk - but I assure you it was a lemon yellow color. (stupid photography).
This next photo may look reminiscent of an over sized, oddly colored glass of beer - but it's a photo of the weld after I added the alum solution. It foamed up like mad - I'm probably lucky it didn't spill over. My instructions for the madder project called for letting it sit at this phase for several days, giving it a quick stir every now and then, until it stops foaming - so that's exactly what I'm going to do with the weld too.
I let it sit over night, and this is what I woke up to the next morning. It had settled pretty well at the bottom, and some of the foam had disappeared - although there was still quite a bit of it. I gave it another stir (after which it looked pretty much like the last photo again, with somewhat less foam). Since then, the foam has mostly gone away, and there is now just a little foamy film on top. I'm going to let it sit for at least another day - maybe two. Then I can start rinsing it.
For this weld project, I had to guess at the amounts of chalk and alum to add, as I couldn't find anything on the subject to use as a guide. I couldn't even find what proportion they should be in compared to one another. In the end, I used my madder project as a guide. It had called for close to two and a half ounces of each alum and potash. In this case I was using chalk instead of potash (and my new acquaintance, Louis, helped to clarify the differences he's noticed between using chalk, potash, and soda ash - Thanks Louis!). I used 2 ounces of each alum and chalk for this batch of weld. Louis has since suggested reducing the amount of each the alum and the chalk next time, and using a different proportion - with more chalk than alum. I am, of course, anxious to start a second batch to compare the difference. Louis also noted that you can obtain a less opaque pigment with weld by using either potash or soda ash instead of chalk, but that the color doesn't come out quite as nice. That came as no surprise to me, since dyers routinely add chalk to weld dye to get the best yellow. (A dyer would have no other motivation to do this, except to adjust the color).
...in fact I read an interesting anecdote posted by a dyer while I was looking for a weld pigment recipe. She had described her dyeing process as adding both a small amount of chalk to bloom the color, as well as the alum mordant straight into the weld dye. Then she noted that she had to keep stirring her dye pot continually, because the color kept settling out. She didn't seem to find this odd for a dye (as in fact it is the definition of a pigment rather than a dye if it is settling out) - and from her posting, it sounded like she thought this was a normal experience. I couldn't help thinking that after all of this time trying to find a pigment recipe - here was this woman getting one by complete accident and not even recognizing what she had discovered. I had to laugh at myself - and then I quit the research and got my own butt into the kitchen to experiment. If she could do it by accident, I could surly do it on purpose. (I didn't attempt to contact her, but if a fellow dyer should happen to find this posting and wonder about it - the solution to that problem would be to mordant the fiber separately before adding it to the dye pot)
Day 22
The madder was quite dry by today (I hadn't checked it in several days - it's probably been thoroughly dry now for some time, though) - so i geared up to go grind it. One cannot be too careful when it comes to dry pigments. Even for a pigment that isn't know to be toxic, it's not a great idea to start breathing pigment dust. (I have read, though, that madder is thought to be mildly toxic). so, on went the gloves and the dust mask. I would have worn eye protection too for good measure, except my lovable husband has lost them. I'll be replacing them shortly, as losing my sight ranks way up there on my list of fears - so anything I can do to protect my eyes is well worth doing in my book.
Below is a final picture of the dried madder on the filter papers. It has shrunk considerably. Interesting how much of that pigment muck was water, isn't it?
With gloved hands, I rubbed the dried pigment into my mortar. you can see it below, next to the now empty filter papers.
And here's a close up of what the pigment looks like, fresh from the filter papers - it's kind of chunky.
Here it is after the first grinding. Seems lighter than it was before the grinding, doesn't it?
My instructions recommended a second wet grinding, noting that you can get a finer powder this way. So I added a bit of water and ground it again. I did notice that it was significantly easier to grind once wet - and it certainly quit kicking up so much pigment dust. Once wet, I could also see the transparency of the color, which I imagine I'll also see once I mull it with linseed oil. My photo didn't really do the color justice - it was a more luminescent earthy orange than it seems in the picture. It also gave me a bit of an idea of how much oil paint I can expect to get out of this batch of pigment. Not too much by the look of it - but it should be enough for a small value study
If I can find a little wood panel, I'm also thinking about rubbing a bit into a the wood to see the effect of using it as a wood varnish (the recipe I used was from David Rubio, who was a violin maker, and used this lake to varnish his finished violins). As it turns out, I'm missing some information that would give me the lake usually used by painters. I've been reading about madder, and know enough to know that there are a number of colorants in the root, the two principal colorants being alizarin and purpurin. Alizarin is what I'm after for the traditional painter's madder lake. I've read of two ways of extracting it from the roots (either by fermentation, or treated with acid) - neither of which methods I have found sufficient information to actually do it yet.
I have, however, discovered something quite exciting. I found a blog titled Sunsikell last week, written by Louis Bipso, in which he writes about a variety of topics of interest to me. In fact, in his latest entry, he's described the pigment lake making process. It follows pretty closely to what I have done with the madder project - however he notes that madder requires more attention and processing to obtain a good color. I discovered his blog while I was sitting at work one day last week with nothing much to do (as usual these days) - and I spent a good part of the day reading through about the past six months of entries. In addition to writing about pigment sources, natural dyestuffs, and types of pigments - he also writes about traditional methods of using the materials - which is also of interest to me. He is the only other painter I have been in contact with to date (we've chat a bit in the comments section of his blog) who even cares about where the colors from - and he not only cares, he loves it at least as much as I do. He's also quite ahead of me in the quest to discover and create color. I'm sure my blog stalking will prove to be a valuable resource as I move forward with my pigment making. For now, I'm crossing my fingers for a post soon on what he knows about madder that I haven't been able to find yet. I'm also going to hunt through a couple of books in my studio and see if one of them can help.
Weld
Growing weld sounds like it should be easy enough - but I didn't want to wait until spring to plant it, and then next fall to experiment with it - so i ordered some dried weld. My supplier was kind enough to include some helpful instructions on the label. Looks like I have enough for 2 dye baths. As with the madder, I want to make pigment out of it first, but am hoping to dye some wool with the discarded dye as well. I should get a lovely, bright yellow out of it.
My weld is currently soaking in about a gallon of distilled water over night. I'll heat it tomorrow to get the dye. Making a lake from the weld should go a bit faster than the madder did. It will also help that I've been through the process once before, so some of it will be second nature this time around.
I've got wool on the stove as I type, in a tin mordant bath (it's nothing exciting to look at, and doesn't look any different than the other photos I've posted previously of mordant baths - looks like wool in a pot with hot water). I've read the tin mordant should produce a nice orange with the madder dye I've got. I'm hoping my saved dye is strong enough. I'll find out tomorrow. I'm going to let the wool cool over night, and I'll dye it tomorrow.
Day 14
Below is a photo of the filtered pigment left to air dry in my studio - behind a closed door where cats and sudden breeze can't disrupt it. It's been sitting here un-disturbed ever since I filtered out the water. The filter on the right was from a couple of days earlier, when I filtered a bit of sediment that had been siphoned off. If you look back a few posts, you'll see what it looked like when it was sitting in the funnel just after filtering - now it looks like a few dark crumbs with a little powdery pigment caught on the rest of the filter. I've been utterly amazed at how much the volume shrinks as it dries out. If you want an immediate comparison - compare this photo with the next.
Day 16
The pigment has just been sitting and drying over the past couple of days - and will continue to do so until it has all dried. I expect at least a couple more days of waiting. To compare with the photo above, the two filter papers at the very top of this photo are the same ones from above. The top left filter is the same filter paper shown on the left in the photo above. Notice just how much the volume of pigment has shrunk over the past few days while it's been sitting and drying! The larger bits have also turned quite dark as they've dried - nearly black.
I recently added a new mini-fridge to my studio (courtesy of Craigslist, and in perfect working condition), for the purpose of storing dye when its not in use. As you can see below, I've found a nice new way to recycle my plastic water bottles. The three pink bottles on the left are a weakened version of cochineal. I've used the dye bath twice, and gotten pretty intense colors both times. I've read that you can use the same cochineal dye bath quite a few times before exhausting it. I'm looking forward to using these to get some nice medium and light pinks. The two on the right are madder that I let boil for an hour. I haven't used these yet at all, and am curious to see how the boiling will affect my result. (if you recall, the madder I used for the pigment project above wasn't heated to anywhere near the boiling point). I have read you can obtain a brilliant orange with a tin mordant and boiled madder. Time will tell - I've got tin on order, and am looking forward to giving it a try.
This one is the madder which has not been boiled, but only heated to about 40-45*C during the pigment making process. I also recharged this bath with the madder & re-heating it to 40-45*C. This is the bath that I used with an alum mordant to achieve the golden blonde color on the skein of wool (pictured below).
Here's the final photo of the wool dyed in the madder bath described above. I put it into the dye bath twice, hoping to get a darker color, but this light color was the best I could get. I do have a feeling that I would have gotten a darker color if I had used the first dye that came from the roots - which of course were used for a lake pigment this time around. I may try it again with the exclusive purpose of creating a dye for wool, just to see what happens. This time around, dying the wool was just a nice side project and a good way to re-use the discarded dye from the pigment project.
I also find myself wondering if the wool-alpaca blend that I used for my last cochineal dye bath would have taken the color better. That particular skein seemed to absorb a surprising amount of the color from the cochineal bath. I'm very curious to try it again with a different dye to see whether those results had more to do with the dye or with the wool-alpaca blend.
Day 10
Pigment-wise, today was exactly like day 9, involving siphoning, and adding more distilled water to the bucket. It looked pretty much exactly like the photos from day 9.
Dyeing the wool was more exciting, so I took some pictures of that process. Here's the wool coming out of the alum bath. I took it out still hot and steamy, using my new prongs.
then rinsed it in the sink before adding it to the dye bath.
Here's a picture of it going into the dye bath. it started absorbing the color right away.
And finally, here it is sitting in the dye bath. I left it over night.
Day 11
I took the wool out of the dye bath, squeezed the excess liquid out of it, and let it hang to dry a bit. The color was not very strong, which I attributed to the dye, since it had given most of its color to the pigment making process.
and so I poured the dye back into the beaker with the roots, to see if i could obtain a stronger dye again. Here's a picture of what it looked like when I first added the dye back into the beaker. I set it over heat to raise the temp back up to 40*C, and gave it a good stir.
Here's another photo of it a while later, once it had reached 40*C. Obviously the roots still have some color left in them!
Below is the wool sitting in the stronger dye bath. I left it again over night.
I also noticed that the first bucket full of water i siphoned off of the large bucket had some sediment in it, which had settled to the bottom. I poured off as much of the liquid as I could without losing the pigment at the bottom, and then poured in a bit of fresh distilled water and let it sit again, just like a mini batch of what was going on in the main bucket. It took significantly less time for the liquid in this batch to run clear, and so I was able to filter this small amount early. Here's a picture of the first little bit of madder pigment. It looks like paint here because it is still wet, but it still needs quite a bit of attention before it will actually be paint.
Day 12
Here's a photo of the outside of the main bucket. since it is translucent, you can see the color of the water, as well as how much pigment is settling at the bottom. It looks like about a liter of sediment at the bottom, and the water is still kind of an orange color here.
This is a picture I took after siphoning off the liquid. You can see the sediment at the bottom of the bucket very clearly, and the orange halo around the edge of the sediment is the small amount of water on top.
This one shows the outside of the bucket after siphoning. I siphoned nearly all of the liquid out of the bucket, leaving only 2 1/2 liters, about half of which looks like sediment.
Day 13
I siphoned most of the water out of the bucket last night, thinking that Mike had picked up more distilled water for me at the store yesterday - but he had forgotten about it. I wasn't able to add fresh distilled water until this morning.
Then I waited a little over 8 hours before siphoning it again. This time the water that was siphoned off of the bucket was close enough to clear (here it looks yellow & a little murky, but once the tiny amount of sediment that made it into the siphoning settles, the water was quite clear). So rather than add more distilled water to it, it's finally time to filter it and separate out the pigment!
Here you can see a little better how clear the water really was. You can see the sediment at the bottom of the bucket, and what looks like a shadow of a halo around the sediment. that shadow is the little bit of clear water still sitting on top of the sediment.
For easier handling, I poured the entire contents of the bucket into one of the beakers. It's looking very murky here because all of the sediment has mixed with the clear water.
Once again I've got a jar setup with a funnel, and one of the chemical filters. This time it's taking longer to get through the filter because it has quite a bit more pigment in it than my small trial batch did a couple of days ago. It is working great, though - only clear water is making it down into the jar, and the pigment is settling nicely into the filter!
above is the madder dye simmering (gasp) with my wool/alpaca fiber. I simmered it for a good hour before letting it cool in the pot over night.
I am having a real problem getting a good photo of the color of the finished wool. It is in fact more orange than it shows in this picture. It is indeed a bit earthy, but it is nowhere near as tan/brown as it seems in this photo. It is a definite orange. I have a feeling that if I had used fresh madder and simmered it from that - it would have been a quite intense, bright orange. Probably still a bit earthy, but very intense for an earthy orange would be my guess - and exactly what I had read about.
Here's the coffee filter catching some of the weld leaves and stems. I found it to be such a slow process with the coffee filter that I tried to keep most of the leaves and stems out of the filter, and instead scooped them up (with gloved hands, of course) and squeezed them over the filter to save time. (if you know me, you know how impatient I can be at times) ;)
Here's a shot where you can see the strained liquid below. It looked fairly orange at this point - a lot like tea.
See that dark spot above?? THAT is a big patch of sediment from the weld that made it through my stupid coffee filter. I had to filter the dye three times to get it all out. I still think my cotton towel would have done a better (and certainly faster) job of catching a lot of this. I probably could have gotten away with straining it once through the towel, and then once through filters to achieve a nice clear dye.
I switched to chemical filter papers for the second and third filtering. I went through several of them - but they didn't clog as easy, and strained quite a bit faster than the coffee filters. They're also significantly stronger when wet than the coffee filters are, and don't tear and break so easy. I do like them, and am researching my options for getting some bigger ones. My science friend Tam pointed me to Fisher Scientific, which has a rather large and overwhelming selection of them. I'm fairly sure that an inexpensive, fast flow variety will suit my needs - but even within that category there are a lot of options. (even more options if you ignore the "inexpensive" bit).
