After finishing my arts degree end of last year I spent the first months of 2017 getting my arts career started. This means making work for art galleries in the North Island, designing workshops, running my first couple of workshops, getting the paper stuff sorted, beginning a new Body or Work, networking with artist fellow artists, galleries and customers.

No wonder I needed a break! I was missing the ‘play time’ as a student, when you just explore, experiment not worrying about the outcome or failures (and generally something great comes out of it anyway).

So I gathered some plant materials such as eucalyptus, bark, loquat and osage orange, sorting out some silk scarves – some already naturally dyed, some not really successful. I over dyed with natural dyes, used some random shibori techniques, and basically just had some fun! Here a few images of my explorations. It was definitely worth it, inspired by the results.

peach leaves soaking in a copper vessel

silk dyed with osage orange, different mordants – changing hues

osage orange silk partially dyed with loquat leaves – gives beautiful oranges

partially over dyed silk

merino dyed with barberry bark, over dyed with eucalyptus

silk/wool fabric previously dyed with cochineal, over dyed with eukalyptus bark – detail

a mix of shibori techniques with indigo, marigold and eucalyptus leaves – detail

silk dyed with marigold over dyed with eucalyptus leaves – detail

silk dyed with cochineal and eucalyptus – preparing for third dye pot

same piece just removed from the dye pot

result

loquat dyed silk over dyed with eucalyptus – left to dry creating the crinkle effect

detail