Contextural Residency 8

Three months of playing in the Fibre Art Department of ACAD over the summer produced a lot of silk scarves and fabrics. The scarves I will be selling at the CALYX Distinctive Art Sale on October 24th, and also at the CONTEXTURAL sale on November 21st.

The fabrics I will be working on over the winter adding stitch and continuing to develop the themes they were created about.

Here is the start of the dyeing process, first layer with low immersion fibre reactive dyes (they are round because the picture is taken at the bottom of a plastic pail!)

 

 Rinsing out the dye...

A sampling of my supplies...

 

 The great hanging racks with one of very many batches being dried...

Contextural Residency 7

I worked with fibre reactive dyes all summer - Procion being my brand of choice.

I started by sampling on different fabrics - did each colour on a cotton and a silk.

By using Ann Johnston's low immersion dyeing techniques one mixes concentrates first to get the health-threatening Procion from a powder into a safer water-based concentrate. I mixed up 15 - 20 different colours, then started playing with different techniques on paper.

Wendy Klotz demonstrating the proper gear for mixing Procion powders in a dust box.

On 300lb Arches Watercolour papers (mailed to me from Courtney BC courtesy of my friend Linda Smith) I started using Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan's dry brush technique. I continued adding to this paper day after day after day after day...

First layers onto three pieces of paper. One in yellows, one in pinks, one in blues.

I flipped each over so they would be two-sided. On each sheet I would use up to three different shades of that particular colour.

One month of painting later - probably 30 layers on each of the six sides.