Breakthrough! by Barbara Matthews

 

I’ve struggled at releasing myself from the structure that I learned in my prior research career. For example, I have created my own dye color recipes -- 24 bottles of my own dye formulas, carefully documented into ratios of red, blue, yellow, or black that went into each recipe. 

   

Don’t get me wrong, this exercise will serve me in future work. But, I also found it became too restrictive. Every time I started a new project, a knot would form in my stomach. Why?! 

It was sort of a mystery to me. I now know my body was telling me this scientific approach was not serving me, that I needed to rely on my intuitive sense of color. I was attempting to document exactness into every project, exactly how I created every color for a particular project—so many drops of yellow mixed with so many drops of blue and then maybe some drops of red added in. Yeah, I’m gagging just writing this.

For the Blurred Boundaries Call I was going after the colors in the Sedona geology. This initial piece captured the colors I wanted. Here I applied thick lines of resist and dye in the spaces in between with a brush in a painterly approach, the dyes running up to the resist line. Sometimes I blended complimentary colors for an ombre effect. However, I wanted something with more texture, plus I needed a variation of values from dark to light.

I put the piece back on a frame to add dye (the frame is shown below as illustration). I learned a dry dye application method from Karen Sistek a Master Silk Painter. The dry method is possible by first applying a starch resist (Magic Sizing) in a spray over the entire piece of silk. After the starch dries, the dye does not penetrate the silk as quickly. Still, a brush of dye needs to be almost dry and the dye is applied in small brush strokes. 

This iteration shows my rather tentative additions that carefully used controlled strokes. Not totally satisfied, I allowed the piece to set overnight.

I came back feeling daring. I had the premixed dyes in the colors I used for the very first iteration. Now the dyes in the bottles had evaporated into more concentrated colors. I added these to my palette and randomly mixed the dyes, dipping the same brush into one then the other! 

I loved the effect, not using the dry brush method, but applying wet dye over the starched surface. Dyes did not flow, but resulted in a distressed surface, one that almost looked dirty. Dirty was perfect! I was simulating rocks after all!

 I mixed colors on the fly! No X number of drops of one color or the other! I used the same brush, not this for olive, this one for purple. It was liberating. The results were dramatic and interesting! I was mixing methods and mixing dyes with recklessness and loving the results!

After steaming, this piece is now ready for the final step--more later.

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Silk painting frames I use—PVC pipe, masking tape and pins to stretch the silk to the frame.