Saturday, August 29, 2020

Painting with Dyes for Textile Art Cards

Bear cub in the wildflowers

Coral! What a delightful colour. As I mix my colours from the 3 primary dyes, (fuchsia, turquoise and lemon yellow) repeating a colour can be challenging. Nonetheless I found myself mixing various shade of it often in the marathon of textile painting I've been doing. 
This piece will include some stitching details before it is made into a card.

You can find my textile cards for sale in Creston, BC at Creston Card and Stationery  or at Cresteramics (and Gift Store) Contact me at eileengidman@gmail.com if you are looking for something specific. They are a gift, as well as a card as they are signed and fit in a 5 X 7" frame or mat. 


This is how I start on a piece of soda ash soaked and dried, natural fiber fabric. In this case it is an excellent quality mercerized cotton. Note the mixed dyes on the far end of the table. 



Painting with thickened dyes using a watercolour brush. Even though the bike and bear images will be cut apart into 5 X 7" size, I sometimes paint a few skies together.



The foam plates are used over and over and make good palettes for the dye colours I mix.



If I am wanting some detail in the images, I paint them first, cure them overnight and then paint in the backgrounds. 


For this style, I paint on a fine lawn cotton. Although I can't get as much detail as with the mercerized cotton, this fabric is most like painting on watercolour paper. I might paint with the dyes without thickening them and allow the dispersion of the pigment as with the clouds in this piece.

1 comment:

Win Dinn, Artist said...

I love your textile cards so much; they make a great combination gift/card, and look so delightful framed. And your range of animals, people and florals surely provides enough possibilities for everyone! Gorgeous!!!