This last August I spent 3 crazy fun & intense days learning to Eco-Dye with fiber artist from down under, India Flint. Our host was mixed media artist Darcy Ritzau of Goleta, Ca. (a bit above Santa Barbara) She opened her art filled home and studio to us and cooked and baked her heart out, and feed us for 3 whole days. It was a real treat! Thank you Darcy for your kindness and generosity. You made the workshop even more special for all of us.
Day One
India started off by having us crumple a piece of paper to soften it for stitching. She had us cut shapes from pieces of silks and baste them down to the paper.
Then we folded it into a booklet...
and filled between each page with all the various windfalls that she and Darcy had colleted for us.
We placed our bond booklets in a eucaliptus dye bath and let it simmer for about 40 minutes so that the vegation could release it's natural dyes into the silk/papers.
Then out they came to cool down. There's mine below :)
The hardest part was opening them up and pulling out the plant matter. It's almost impossible not to slightly rip littles areas of the paper. All 12 of us gals struggled with that.
We used various size and shaped can lids to help bind the books along with large clamps. Even rubberbands and string. Whatever you use acts as a resist and leaves wonderful makes on the paper as you can see on mine above.
Both sides of my paper after I got it open and cleaned of plant matter.
I really liked the stitch marks on these 2 papers. I think one of them might have been India's sample. Wish I could remember.
All 13 of our papers, front and backsides.
India taught us a map folding technique so that we ended up with magic acordian books. So very cool!
I really enjoyed our next paper. India had us loosely scribble text over the paper, all different sizes and directions with a pencil. We origami folded this one with a slit we cut thru the center, and I tucked mine inside my 3rd paper bundle to be dyed.
Before we dyed this paper, India had us cut a very small frame, about a inch square opening, and move it over our lines ans shapes until we found an interesting area. She had us backstitch overtop this tiny area and that became our special idenfication mark that we put onto all our papers. I loved this and thought it a very special exercise.
For our 3rd paper of the day India gave us a packet of several different kinds of silks that we cut into shapes and stitiched down to our crumpled papers. We did the origami slit thing again, then folded them up and inserted between each page yellow and red onion skins and strawberry tops. Into the bubbling caldron of ornamental plum leaves it went.
And this was mine after it cooled down and I was able to open it. Fabulous!!!
All of us taking a peek with India to exclaim how magical they were.
Front and back sides. Notice the difference between the people who only used the yellow onions with no reds.
Well that was it for day one. What an exciting, fabulous, learning experience it was, but I was exhausted. So off to dinner and bed. Several of the gals came back the next morning with more creative papers that they had made in their hotel rooms. We will see those in my next post.
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