Am I Blue?
Tsk, another song title. And yet, it is appropriate at least a little bit. MY head is not blue, but the cloth on this wig head is several shades of sapphire, indigo, cerulean, peacock, sky and other blues.
Cotton stretch jersey was tied with rubber bands to produce a pattern of circles. A section of the finished cloth is shown below. Other folds are used to create stripes, diamonds, and swirls.
In just a few days, I’ll have blue and other colored splotches here and there in spite of nitrile gloves and the best intentions. Reduran, a hand cleaner specially made for dyers really does take a lot of it off, and a coating of clear nail polish helps protect fingers and toes a bit.
We dye outside, and it gets messy, but cleans up pretty darn well, all things considered. The fixative, (soda ash) is only applied to the textiles and ribbons that are meant to be dyed, and with care, you can keep dye splashes and spills from being permanent where you DON’T want them. We do our fixative pre-soak with the water and soda ash in a plastic wading pool. Another is used for rinsing, and there are lots of buckets involved, for dip dyeing and for carting rinsed loads to the washing machine.
For a few days this week, my back yard will be an explosion of color!Here’s a list of the SPECIFIC colors, and you will note many blues! We print the list on labels using the computer, and then attach the labels to each bottle of dye as it is mixed up. Its very hard to tell the colors apart in liquid form otherwise. We also keep color swatches in labeled plastic bags for visual reference when dyeing. Its hard sometimes to recall WHICH blue is which! Labeling helps. Keeping track helps…and will also become part of blogs, articles, and a future book on dyeing. Books require many months and even years of preparation and gathering of information and images. This one probably wont see publication until 2009—but its on the list and the work rotation.
| #03 Golden Yellow #03A Clear Yellow #05 Soft Orange #06 Deep Orange #09 Scarlet #10A Chinese Red #13 Fuchsia Red #14A Hot Pink #15 Amethyst #17 Burgundy #18A UltraViolet #19 Plum #19A Lilac #20 DustyRose #21 Teal Blue #22 Cobalt Blue |
#23 Cerulean Blue #25 Turquoise #26 Sky Blue #28A AquaMarine #30A NewEmeraldGreen #34 Rust Brown #37 Bronze #44 BetterBlack #45 Jungle Red #47 Chartreuse #50 JadeGreen #60 Lavender #62 PeacockBlue #64 Orchid #65 Raspberry |
#70 SapphireBlue #85 Seafoam #96 Lapis #97 Citrus Yellow #105 Pewter #108 CaymanIslandGreen #111 Black Cherry #112 Periwinkle #113 GoldenBrown #115 Eggplant #117 Grape #118 Yucca #119 Red Violet #312 Strongest Red #510 Basic Brown |
A lot of my endeavors tend to collect up against each other or tie into each other eventually, and not just in the piles that accumulate all over the studio. I have a love of pattern, a deep and abiding joy in colors, and I just adore a good black outline. And although I am willing to admit that I am addicted to buzz I get from a good strong jolt of color, I also do a lot of work in black and white and find the clarity of composition in a pen drawing to be very compelling. Am I caught betwixt and between the B/W vs. Color issue? No indeed, there’s room in my heart and my studio for both.
As an example of how things tend to mix it up, both in my head and in my eventual finished product, here’s a look at a drawing I did a long time ago. It began with black ink and my trusty Rapidiograph pen, long since traded in for Micron pens that don’t clog!
Here’s a look at the same page, with the color added. I used the Print On Demand publishing capabilities at 
