The seasons change - and so do the colors in nature. I am having fun dyeing with local sustainably sourced black walnuts and goldenrod flowers. Also working on some rust dyed projects for a local seafood business, Sea Eagle Markets. I used the rust from the old shrimp boats to dye 30 tee shirts at the Village Creek docks with the help of a good friend The process took about 7 days to get the rust color into the cotton. Sea Eagle then screen printed their tee shirts with their design over it. Each tee shirt is one of a kind. If you want to learn more about the processes involved with rust dyeing and natural dyes, my new site will go more in depth. My new website www.seaislandtextiles.weebly.com will be online very soon, Here is a peek at some of the work I have been doing the last few months. Everything is done without electricity, on a fire with wood from my land and water collected from the rain in barrels. Creating textiles outdoors feels more natural plus I can throw the liquid in the bush and it helps the earth. More nature colors coming as the experiments continue. Remember this - if it's natural and it STAINS your clothes, (and you cannot get it out after washing)? It is an AWESOME natural dye. In textile terms it is known as a 'direct' dye. Direct dyes need NO mordant to become 'colorfast'. A mordant is the thing you add to the dye process to help 'set' the color 'fast' to the fiber. If you have clothes that run in the wash? You have a fabric that was not mordanted right. I love when I find another color that stains my clothes, because that becomes a new color to experiment with. Check out local plants and rub flowers or leaves into a piece of 100% cotton or wool and see if it stains. Then you can do your own experimenting. Let me know what colors you come up with and send me your pics. I would love to feature some of your own dye results on my new website. Have fun with it and wear gloves - unless you want hands like mine. :-(
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Sorry for the delay in getting these photos up and out there. Had so much fun face painting for the children and adults at Penn Center's Heritage Days Annual celebration. Here are pictures of the day and the beautiful faces I had the pleasure to paint. Thank you everyone for a great day and allowing me to photograph you. Please check out http://www.penncenter.com to find out more about what is happening during the year at Penn. If anyone is interested in Face Painting for events or parties please contact me at [email protected]. Will be updating this blog on a more regular basis, so keep checking in. Experimenting with locally and sustainably sourced natural dyes of the Lowcountry - coming up next week...... stay tuned...
The Lowcountry has seen snow!! January 3rd 2017 we witnessed a rare snowfall. Four days later it is still so cold the snow has not melted. Here are a few photos I took venturing out during and after the storm. Quite odd seeing palm trees, spanish moss, sand and snow together. Wherever you are - I hope you are warm.
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the artistand the journey ...... Archives
January 2019
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