Photos:Pat, Gracie,
Cynde,
Cynde, AmyWe have spent the last few years, having a two day fabric dyeing workshop every summer at Vera's. After the first year of beginning lessons in mixing dye concentrate, dyeing gradations, three layer parfaits, and color theory, we have been on our own. Vera has offered guidance and expertise, and her wonderful workspace. Her home is on a ranch, up high on a hill with a wonderful view, quiet peacefulness, and warm summer days, sometimes too warm. We have made thickened dye pastes to paint with, mostly working on fat quarters or half yard pieces. We also use the pastes to print on the fabric with a variety of found objects, rug grids, bubble wrap, foam & rubber stamps, stencils, rubbing plates, potato mashers and other kitchen gadgets. She has had us work a number of different methods, wet on wet, wet on dry, with paper resists, mono printing, masking tape, and tie dye. We also tried some tied shibori techniques. Corriene has dyed silk yarns for her weaving, a slightly different method of chemicals. I have dyed cotton yarns in small skeins and a large ball, Cynde and Gracie like doing t-shirts and school clothes. We have learned a lot, at first trying to "paint" something that looked like something. Vera tried to get us to let loose, but we we're very literal minded, abstraction came hard when faced with a blank piece of fabric. She also MADE us paint a color wheel, we resisted at first, but those who did it found it very useful. We have grown as artists, now, we are not as afraid of mixing our colors, of layering techniques, and being abstract.
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