Saturday, December 1, 2012

Autumn Leaves batik - final dyeing

After I took the picture I posted yesterday, I left the piece to batch overnight.  Early this morning, I decided I wanted to add some more layers of color to the background to add to the visual interest, so before I laundered the piece, I used a sea sponge and added some Palomino Gold, Copper (my mixture), and a little more Dark Brown.  Then I batched for several more hours before I rinsed and laundered the piece.  Here it is now:
The piece was still wet yesterday when I took the picture I posted then, so it appeared that the background around the leaves was darker.  Once it dried, it became lighter.  Today, after adding the additional colors, I see a little shading and more of a variegated background, which I like much better.  So now, I think I'll keep it up on the design board for a little while to decide what I will do next: finish as an Art Quilt?  Stretch, mount and frame?  I have finished similar pieces using traditional quilted and free-motion stitched methods, but I think studying it for awhile will help me to see where it takes me.  One thing I'm glad of is that I tried using batik to block out the leaves before dyeing the background.  It's nice to have a more muted background than I get if I pre-dye the piece with the autumn leaf colors, then cover the leaves, then overdye the background.  I'll post more when I have taken the next step on this piece.      

1 comment:

beth from still life pond said...

Really interesting to watch this process unfold. (Even the oops.) I wonder what you'll do next...