One of the 'dangers' for me in having two weeks to myself to create art (as an artist in residence at the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site) is that I bring with me more projects than I could possibly complete in that 2 week time.
This post is a continuation of the previous post where I got the plant matter ready and bundled things up to steam and let the chemistry and natural pigments do their work for some eco-printing aka botanical dyeing.
Now, I get to 'unveil' them!
This one is a small silk scarf that contained red onion skins, marigold petals and some tea leaves (from the tea I brew every morning). I don't think I got any color out of the tea leaves, but I do think the tannins in the tea helped to intensify the colors.
I did three of these small silk scarves and although I used the same technique in assembling them, they all look different to me.
This is the larger bundle which is a cotton tea towel from Target. It contains the sliced up 'wild carrot' (which really isn't a carrot, but a plant called, dock root), tea leaves, oak leaves from last fall and some red onion skins.
Peeling the 'sandwich ' apart...
I was surprised the the PVC pipe that I wrapped everything around picked up the pigment from the dock root. I didn't think it was a porous surface!
And, here comes the, 'now what?' question, as in, what do I do now? I will hang onto it until I get home and wait for the oak trees to turn red in the fall. With that, I'll do some over dyeing and see how I feel about that outcome then.
Here are the 3 silk scarves after they've had a chance to dry. Don't think I'm done with these either.
