Tomatoes on Textile

Dye Painted Fabric: 'Ripening Tomatoes'

This painting honors the home grown tomato which, in my opinion, has the richest tomato flavor. Yum! We wait anxiously for the first tomatoes of the season, secretly wishing to be the first gardeners, in our area, with ripe tomatoes!

Unlike a lot of my fabric pieces, this piece was dyed in one session. I sketched the plant onto white cotton fabric with a thickened black dye, squeezed from a bottle with a metal nib. The nibs come in various thicknesses from www.dharmatrading.com . Find them under the resists tab. They are called resist applicators.

After letting the black dye dry slightly, remember moisture is needed for the curing process, I painted the tomatoes in light green, yellow, orange and red orange. The leaves were painted in 3 green hues. After those colours had dried slightly I added a second layer to bring extra vibrancy to the colours. The piece was batched/cured between two layers of plastic overnight and rinsed the next day.

This is a large, 16 X 20", piece and it will be displayed April 15 - May 10, 2013 at Key City Theatre, in Cranbrook, B.C. The Kootenay Summer Show features Win Dinn windinnart.blogspot.com with mixed media, Laura Leeder lauraleeder.blogspot.com with watercolour, Jim Lawrence www.kootenayreflections.com with photography and myself, Eileen Gidman www.eileengidman.com with textile painting.  More information on the opening to follow.