Today was the last day of our thickened dyes/liquid resists class, and there was a flurry of activity as we tried to fit in lots of dye painting. When I arrived this morning, I first went to work painting the resisted pieces from yesterday. I mixed up some dark turquoise for these pieces. The first is the potato dextrin resist in which I stamped netting and a plastic grid. All photos are clickable for bigger view.

This is the back side, and you can get a better idea of how the resist is working. It is curing and will get washed tomorrow.

I also used the dark turquoise on the yellow/green silk scarf which had combed potato dextrin. Here is the front.

Here is the back which shows how the design created from the resist. I don’t know how well this will take the dye. Jeannette says that silk has fewer dye receptors so a second dye does not usually take. I did not know this and have often over-dyed silk. So we shall see!!

On the white cotton fabric which was screen printed with circles and stamped with bubble wrap, I used chocolate brown. I will probably over-dye this. This is the back side.

My next activity was to wash out the resist from yesterday’s dye-painting. This is a blurry photo of the torn paper screen print with corn dextrin. I think that I will discharge and additional design element on this piece.

The dye in the corn dextrose worked, but the black color washed out to a gray. The potato dextrin crackle gave it some great texture.

Jeanette demonstrated painting directly on fabric with thickened dyes without resists. I had lots of fun. Here is some free from painting on silk habotai. Hey, Picasso, I’m not!

On some organza, I stamped chocolate brown circles with a round sponge and then squirted black paint with a syringe.

This organza is painted with left over thickened dye that I gathered from other students.

A great time was had by all. I feel more competent to play with thickened dyes in my own studio. just need more time!!

Playing with thickened dyes is something I have always wanted to do. Now, I have lots of ideas permeating my brain. When we arrived this morning, our potato dextrin pieces had dried and cracked into wonderful mosaic designs. Here, I am applying black thickened dye with a foam brush. This is very tedious and an Ipod with great music is a nice accessory. The dye has to dry and is then wrapped in plastic to cure for 24 hours.

This is the piece that had the masking tape and potato dextrin. I used a combo of black and red thickened dye. I should have taken a photo of the back because you can get a hint of how the resist is working and the wonderful design that is left. This was taken outside in partial sun. (It was nice and hot in Portland, today.)

Last night, I posted to the Complex Cloth list about this workshop. Someone mentioned that you can add thickened dye to corn dextrin and paint it on the fabric. Then, when it is dry, you can add potato dextrin and add another layer. So, I had to try it. Here, I have used a thermofax screen (I didn’t have the corn dextrin thick enough). I have added a layer of combed potato dextrin over it.

For this piece, I used a construction fence to paint the corn dextrose. After drying, I added potato dextrin.

I mixed up a great green dye which I used for the corn dextrin pieces. I think they are going to look great. Today, we had a session on screenprinting, which I didn’t really need. I did this torn paper screen print of corn dextrin on this piece.

I was so excited to find out that one of the bad girls in the back of the room made this “Bare Rug.” Tamara teaches at Lynfield College. The rug was on display and was stolen. You can read about its disappearance, here and its recovery, here. She brought it in for us to see today. This is a first in a series that she plans to do.

While I was waiting for Reva to drive us home, I saw this adorable young robin, playing in the shrubbery.