The Garage Sessions: Mad Scientist at Work

Resist dye experiment

This week has been all about experiments.  I feel a little like a Mad (Fabric Dye) Scientist and I’ve turned my garage into my lab.  With both the Tangled Webs and the Wall Drawing series in mind, and after having done much research on direct application fabric dyeing techniques, I’m finally diving in and playing with it.  I love the surprises and the unknowns and not having (much) control over the results.  I also love playing with using physical resists, like rope and wire, as well as more traditional resists that can be drawn or painted on, like presist.  What’s really fun about this is it combining drawing and sculpting with fabric manipulation and I like the challenge and varying effects of combining techniques.

Direct Dyeing Experiment

I’ve experimented with soaking fabric in fixative soln first and then applying the dye (with the fabric being both wet and dry before dye application).  I’ve also tried adding the fixative to the dye solution itself before adding to the fabric.  And I’ve combined these with various resist techniques.

Resist dye experiment - Ruching technique

I’ve even created my own little 3 mile island, trying out the “ruching” technique where, in the version of this that I am trying,  you wrap fabric around a tube and then scrunch it down, hold it in the scrunched position with rubber bands and then paint dye on it, and submerge it in an immersion dye bath.

I’ll post more images to show the results of these experiments after they’re done  “cooking”.

Enjoy the holiday weekend everyone!

Tags: direct fabric dye techniques, resist dyeing, ruching