Dye Workshop🎨

 For this weeks workshop, we got to choose. I picked the dye workshop; it was a process I hadn't tried before and was really intrigued to have a go, and experiment.

Before I started, I wanted to really plan how to approach the workshop - what did I want to do and why?

I thought about what I had access to.... colour.

How could I use this in my project? 

• Contrasting between colours to show injustice, tensions, issues...
• Complimenting colours to show unity, togetherness, community...
• The actual idea of dye resist - the suffragettes, resisting the social pressures they were put under. The cloth resisting the dye I applied. 

We had lots of types of dyeing to try: full colour, over-dye, dip-dye, dye resist (Batik, Shibori and Tie-Dye).

I had so much fun trying out all the techniques! Experimenting with what I could do to each piece of cloth and paper, I found really enjoyable. See some of my pieces below:

I loved how you controlled the dye, the way you put the cloth into it, the manipulation to the actual cloth, yet you have no control on what would happen - how the cloth would take the dye. The idea of having no expectations.

As well as the cloth, some of the newsprint the dye pots were on, and the pieces I layed all my outcomes onto, had some gorgeous marks on them. I had to photograph and use these! Some of the shapes are so amazing!

I want to see what I can do with all of these outcomes - I have a few ideas on how I am going to develop them. Possibly some collage, sewing, etc.

I felt weeks workshop was really successful! I had lots of fun and started to experiment and try new materials - first time back in and it did not disappoint! Challenging to get started, as with any new process, but I really liked pushing myself and seeing what I could produce. Really excited on taking these forward.

Some pages from my sketchbook, documenting this workshop: