Iris Eco Dyes and Prints

This is Part Two of my “Iris Post”. FYI, when I explore a new (to me) plant for dye potential, I sometimes enjoy a little play at Kinder Chemistry. Three jars are set up for solar soaking: Jar 1: water; Jar 2, water with alum; Jar 3: water with ammonia. Into each goes the plant material and the resulting colours are; purple (water plus iris, no alum): turquoise green-blue (water and alum plus iris) greenish (later, yellow): water and ammonia, plus iris. (The jar of red in the pic is corepsis, for another post)

Below: El Camino de los irises:

Iris on alum mordanted vintage silk. The greenest parts are from the calices; the yellows from the “beards” or pollen bearing parts.

Close up:

The same on an 80% wool-20% silk mix:

Close up: Now this is green!

The alum mordanted silk, steamed, on the left. Iris juice finger-smooshed onto vintage linen, no heat, on the right. (Your fingers go seriously blue)

Below: Smooshed iris on mordanted linen (L) No heat.

Smooshed iris on unmordanted linen (R). No heat.

Below:Pounding, grinding, squeezing, treading the blossoms: with and without heat processes.

Iris juice dripping from the vase of blooms. You can squeeze the juice out, too. Even the spent blooms give colour, as does the spent plant material, post printing. This bloom contains a lot of pigment. I spread fresh and spent and juiced blooms onto my linen panel for hapazome. The blue drop below stained my fifty year old varnished oak table! Blue, too.

Pounding with a rock: damp linen, unmordanted. The colours separate – that happen mostly from various colours coming from the different plant parts. Colour also comes from various dye component chemicals in the blossoms that separate out in the process.

Below: With coreopsis (red-orange) on found paper, Iris sibirica, pounded on after other plant colours were steamed on; mordanted with alum.

Lower left: sumac and coreopsis with iris on mordanted silk, a tad of rusty iron. Note the purples.

Upper right, cotton string in an iris dye bath, mordanted: paper, ditto (moss greens)

Iris sibirica on linen, treaded in (that is my left foot, lower left.) Yellows from the anthers and stamens.

Unmordanted, steamed papers (left). All blues and mauves. Mordanted, steamed papers on the right. A range of medieval greens.

Next time: the third iris post – about the “hapazome” ( pounded, treaded) length of linen and the frozen blooms. We are away for five days and the iris will be gone gone by then, no stagglers. So whatever is left of the June 2013 crop will go into the freezer. More printing a dyeing on top some artist books to finish

It has been lovely working with the iris

Wendy

 

 

Posted with Blogsy