There are several suggestions as to which way to go - ie natural dyes, chemical dyes, screen printing - in the assignment notes so the first thing I had to do was make some choices as I was required to at least have a go at two specific areas. Unfortunately funds are extra tight at the moment, so although I'm building up a file of information about possible online sources of dyeing materials, I don't really have sufficient money available to send for all of the things I'd really like to, especially for the natural dyeing, so I'm going to try and be imaginative and 'recycle' some things where I can.
After reading through the assignment notes I naturally turned to both the internet and the local library for further iniformation. Articles, web sites and items I found of particular interest on the internet I decided I would print off to go in a dyeing research and reference folder. Meanwhile below are scans of the covers some of the books I managed to find in the local library as background reading:
This is a really useful reference book with far more suggestions in it than I could possibly try for this assignment! A very good place to start.and more for later
You can't beat a bit of good old tie dying! I think I'll incorporate this in some form in my finished samples.
And also batik, which I've always wanted to try properly but have never had the 'kit'. I do have the remains of a few candles from Christmas though so it might be worth trying an experiment or two?
And also shibori to add another extension of ideas.
And while painting isn't quite dyeing, there's no reason why you can't put one with the other! Part of the beauty of dying is not always knowing what end result you are going to get, and the creation of 'accidental' backgrounds to inspire further work.
Having reached this point I decided I would do some experimentation with chemical dyes (Procion MX and acid) as I already had some of these in my supplies. While there were some lovely ideas for natural dyes, again funds precluded buying materials so I decided to look around and do some starter experiments with what was readily available around me, eg grass, onion skins etc. After all this assignment is intended - as indeed is the whole course - to build a foundation of knowledge; there would be plenty of time in the years ahead to try out more things.
