I had it all figured out. While walking to work in the rain this morning, I planned today’s blog post about how it is gray and miserable outside, but in my studio there were all these bright colors from my dye experiments.
So now it’s sunny out, and I couldn’t possibly write that post while the sunlight is streaming across my desk. But you can have the colors anyway, I suppose. These are “replacement series experiments”, where two dye primaries are mixed in different proportions and dilutions. There was wool and silk in each dyebath, and everything was measured neatly into the cups of an old muffin tin and baked for a while to set the dye. I need more muffin tins – this is going rather slowly – but I wouldn’t use them for anything after I finish all the samples, so it would be wasteful. Unless maybe Goodwill has some.
Turquoise and bright yellow:
Turquoise and fuchsia:
Who knew that a lot of turquoise and a little fuchsia made dark blue? Well, I’m sure lots of people did, but I wasn’t one of them. I swear the ones toward the bottom left are purple, but I appear to be completely incapable of photographing purple.
Fuchsia and bright yellow:
There are lots more to do. I have a whole ‘nother set of primaries – cherry red, bright blue, and sun yellow – plus black. And that doesn’t even include the three-dye mixes. Why two sets of primaries? Because none of them are “pure” colors – one “red” is a bit on the purple side, and the other is a bit on the orange side, so they mix differently. You’ll see when I get some more of them done.
And now, the sky is gray and cloudy and there is no sunbeams to be had. “Fickle” is indeed the appropriate description of the weather today.
