Gaia's Echo: June 2015

Lately I see a lot of hybrid techniques with involved eco print with synthetics dyes.

I guess there is need to more variations of colours and more bright colours which is not easy to achieve with eco print.

I am not judging anyone and do not pretend to tell the world what is right or wrong. I can only choose my own way and I choose to practise and investigating natural dyes and the possible combination with prints from plants. I'm writing this post to tell and show the results that could achieved with only natural ingredients.

The last two years I practice natural dyeing in its classical approach. Experimenting with the classic dyes such as Madder, Weld, Indigo, Cochineal, Walnuts, etc... The process involved mordant with alum or iron (depending on the kind of shade I want to get) as a first step and than dye the fabric in solid colour.

After I got some confidence with the dyeing process I wanted to combine my eco print skills with more bright colour as a background. This are two of my first attempts from two years ago.

Irit Dulman

The more and more I experiment with the technique, strange and unexpected results start to appear. Now I can look at this period of experimenting in a positive point of view but it was not easy, it's involved a lot of frustration. I fell and got up and fell again. I checked all possibilities. Printing first and than mordant and dye and the other way around. each way gave different results.

The unexpected surprises was the reactions between the mordant, dyes and the prints the prints. For example, a very bright deep blue print instead of the usual gray-blue from tannin-iron reaction. One day I got a very very unexpected result. The colour of the background in some part of the plant simply disappeared or in dyeing terms, the plants discharge the colour of the background.

Irit Dulman

As I progressed through, these results came again and again and I realise that there is something more to explore with was not in my plan in the beginning. I decided to took it to my classes even if the technique was still raw and I did not fully understand what is going on.

It was AMAZING. So much more possibilities came up during the classes. Colours variation blending with background shade and over-dye which the leaves and discharge prints.

I want to share some of those results by chooseing those who reflect the most this new discoveries.