I had the perfect opportunity to work on my series in that last three days whilst participating in SAQA’s virtual conference.  What an experience! Read my earlier post http://SAQA 2020 MoSAiQA Conference (Toronto)

Nature’s Palette Series

I am continuing on my current series Nature’s Palette.  My current work focuses on materiality.   I challenge myself to use the fabric and paper that I use to wrap and protect the scarves and wraps I create in the dyeing and printing processes.

As I was sorting through some of the paper towel  that was used as a barrier for eco printing a scarf,  I came across a piece that spoke to me.  Usually I put them in my recycle pile.  I liked this piece and was going to mount it on canvas.  But then I gave myself permission to play.   Fabric was auditioned that was used to wrap my scarves for steaming and played.   I found a piece of cotton that would interplay with my paper towel piece.  Finally  I found I could place the paper on the fabric so that the lines from one would extend to the other.

So I stitched along the lines.  So as I listened to talks at the conference I kept stitching and voila.  My  finished piece.

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On Tuesday at the garden club little stems of Eucalyptus polyanthemos were used in a display. The differences between juvenile and mature leaves was very noticable especially as the mature leaves were more silvery. I couldn’t help myself and made the comment about whether they would be eco printing differently.  So I was given a small branch of each to try eco printing with, with the proviso, that I bring the results to the next garden club meeting.  I will happily do this. The front stem in the photo on the left has the juvenile leaves.

My experimentation steps:

When I came home I found some scraps of wool and silk for my experiment.  So as not to confuse which leaves I used, I decided to put a sprig of juvenile leaves on the fabric and to put each pair of mature leaves separately ie not attached to a twig/stem  in any way.  I lay the leaves out on each sample.  As I wanted to know how the front and back printed I folded the fabric in half on each sample.  For both the wool and silk samples I lay a  paper towel that had been dipped in a very very weak iron water solution over one sample and lay the other sample on top because it usually this will stop any echo printing.  I rolled it over a wood dowel and tightly bundled it.  I steamed both bundles together in my steamer and then left them to sit for 48 hours.  The temptation is to unbundle straight away.  I could see colour coming through the bundles – darker in one, brighter in the other.  The wool bundle looked darker.

Wow what a surprise.  The juvenile leaves seem to have a lot of pigment that carried through the layers.  The front of the juvenile leaf gave a bright eco print. The back of juvenile leaves gave a darker eco print.  The mature leaves gave a much darker rich ecoprint.

The colours overall were richer and deeper on wool.  (Photo on left.)

Some confusion

I must say say I was a little confused as the common name referred to at the garden club was silver dollar eucalyptus.  I always thought the Eucalyptus  Cinerea was the silver dollar eucalyptus.  Luckily they also referred to its botanical name.  In Australia it is also referred to as the red box gum but in California, US it is called the silver dollar.

To see my ecoprinting with other eucalypt leaves visit my Snowy Textiles page and to see how I use it in my art visit my gallery. 

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Extracting pigment from plants and soil is my way of

• saving colours,
• of finding hidden colours,
• of catching nature’s range of colours and arranging it on fabric and yarn.

Some colours stand up to washing whilst others fade quickly or disappear totally over time.  When dyeing with plants  I try to ensure that I use plants that are substantive and not fugitive.  For this reason I do not use eg berries.  I also try not to mix eco printing of exotic plants with our eucalypts as they have different requirements.

 I use natural fibres – silk, wool, cotton, linen, bamboo and paper.

 Environmentally responsible practices:

• low immersion process for dyeing
• minimising use of water in rinsing process to extract excess dyes
• collecting windfall foliage, or foliage cut down to clear foliage around electricity wires
• recycling cloth

I create original, unique one of a kind silk, wool, silk and wool blend, and cotton pieces using either  natural dyes, ecoprinting, fibre reactive or acid dyes.  Most pieces are created using plant material from the local environment, material collected on travels in Australia or personalised by using plant material from a person’s home environment.  Every piece is individually crafted using dyes extracted from plants or chemical dyes.

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Maybe you have heard of the Slow Movement or Slow living.  In the textile world it refers to going back to handstitching, to doing things without rushing.  I belong to the  Slow Movement as the art processes used to create any of my art pieces or fashion asccessories are all intrinsically time consuming and meditative.  There are several major steps involved in the making and creating.

Whether I am making a scarf, a top for my Snowy Textiles or a piece of art for my  Nature’s Palette Symphony series I usually start with white fabric or white watercolour paper or cotton rag paper.

First step of my art process

• Collection of the leaves, barks, soils that I want to use to paint, print  and create marks with.   I collect on my walks and sometimes drive out to specific  places to collect what I will use.

Step two of my art process

This is the making the decisions stage – of how I want to create, colour and mark.  Before I can start I have to decide:

• whether I am going to use mordant/s and how eg added to the pot or pre mordant the fabric or post mordant and how. There are several different ways depending on the fabric I want to use.
• what sort of palette I want to work with – dark, coloured, natural
• whether I want to create patterns or just dye or print.
• whether I want to colour the cloth first and then print it, or print and colour it at the same time, or do several ‘dips’ in different colours and then print, or print and then colour.
• whether I want to steam it or ‘cook’ it in a pot.If I want to cook it in the pot I have to decide what sort of pot I want to use – copper, aluminium or steel.  Then I have to decide whether I am going to just do it in water or whether I want to dye it with bark or foliage or indigo.  If I am going to use foliage or bark I have to break it up into small pieces, place it in the pot and bring it to a slow simmer for several hours.   Bark I need to leave for a long while, even up to a week or two before I simmer it.
• if I am going to steam it I need to ready the pot and have it steaming ready for my bundles.
• how I am going to create a tight bundle – by rolling, folding and clamping, just clamping and whether I wanted to use paper or fabric between the layers to stop the ghosting of prints.

Step three of my art process

This is the stage of creating colour and marks. – the printing and / or dyeing process.  This is a long but rewarding process.  Laying out of the leaves is a contemplative process.  I will:

• mordant the fabric if that is what I decided to do.
• dye my fabric if that is what I decide to do before printing, rinse it and dry it.
• lay my fabric or paper on a table and arrange foliage on it. Sometimes I may create marks with rusted objects prior to this.   After carefully arranging the foliage, seeds, bark, fruit or vegetable skins I will make a tight bundle.  I may roll it around a stick or tube and tie it very tightly or clamp it.  Then I will steam or ‘simmer’ it often for several hours.  OR
• apply shibori techniques to create pattern and put it in a ‘simmering’ pot, or in an indigo vat, OR
• apply both steps to the same piece of fabric or paper in either order, OR
• having done any of the above then post mordant the piece.
• after processing it with steam or in a pot, it has to cool and is eventually unwrapped, dried, ironed and in the case of fabric washed dried and ironed again. It is magic to undo the bundles and see the results.  Paper I unwrap as soon as it is cool enough to handle.  Fabric I will leave several days to give time for colours to release as much as they can.

If I am making a scarf or wrap this will be the end of the creating process

The fourth step of my art process

This is the hardest but the most exciting stage and I love the challenge.  I will decide:

• whether to leave the compositions on paper untouched or to add something to it.  Will this be the final step or not.
• whether to leave the fabric compositions untouched or to add something to it.  Will this be the final step or not.
• how to use the pieces I coloured and marked to create an interesting and dynamic composition.  I audition the pieces and decide on a starting point and then keep adding and subtracting until I have an interesting composition and then decide how I will enhance it with stitch.

You can see how I created Improvisation 1: Lost in the Mist and Improvisation: #2 Tranquility from my Improvisation using Nature’s Palette series in my blog posts on them.

The final fifth step of my art process

This is a contemplative and meditative stage as I may decide to add pen, pencil or ink marks to the work or create texture across the surface with thread.  If I am handstitching it is a very slow process and takes hours and hours.  If I am machine stitching it is still very intense as I colour in with thread.

I love doing this and can’t stop myself from doing it.

https://rasamauragis.com/art-gallery/#Improvisation-Series-using-Nature’s-Palette

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I had collected sixteen samples from the vicinity where I live to see how effective the plant material was for  eco printing.  Some plant material is more effective in the dye bath than in eco printing.  So it was my time to experiment and get to know the local flora for my dyeing. We moved here just over two years ago and I am finally getting back into my fibre arts.

I had used silk noil for my samples with cotton that had been soaked in soy milk between the layers of silk.  One bundle was put into a pot with iron, the other with copper.

I was quite excited as I peeled the layers apart.  Some of the colours were amazing, whilst others were somewhat disappointing.  I was surprised how well the  ecoprint appeared on the cotton with some plants.  I initially laid them out in pairs so I could compare the results.

I finally laid them all out and left them to dry overnight.

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Today I have put together two identical sample groups of native plants to test dye. I decided to be very disciplined (unusual for me) and numbered each sample and also glued a leaf into my dyeing journal. I want to see the difference of dyeing the leaves in iron and copper mordants. In addition I put together two pieces of silk noil for dyeing. In one I have trapped local plant material from the Snowy Mountains area. The second has leaves that I collected and dried on our recent trip that I called a ‘meandering trip’ along the Great Diving Range. Tonight they have been left to sit in the dye bath. I now need to be patient to see the results in a few days.  New task –  to work out how to  post photos onto the blog.

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