playing in the dirt

well, "pigments" I suppose, would be the correct term but nevertheless, I've been getting my hands dirty and having a good time 

results have been mixed but right now it's about learning how, not making great

last week I prepped and then coloured a variety of cloth-types with Cyprus Umber Dark and Cyprus Green with mixed results

mixing the pigments with the soy milk needs to be done well and with care

I missed on the "well" part and so my paint was rather grainy and the resulting cloth was uneven in colour with a fair few splotchy areas so the other day I painted other colours on in different ways

I got some interesting results and learned a lot about the opacity of some of the pigments as well as how they sit on and work their way down into and often through the cloth

here's a selection of some of the more interesting results

(I've had trouble photographing this first one - it looks a bit less grainy in real life as opposed to the photo and the white areas pop a little more but these images are pretty close)

I like it well enough that I'll post-size this one with soy milk to seal it, let it cure for the prescribed 28 days and then add stitch

I don't mind at all that they have to cure for this long as it will give me a lot of time to let the ideas settle

I'm quite intrigued with this one... I had in mind some of the atmospheric paintings by Turner and so I lightly washed the Cyprus Green areas with a light yellow ochre before softening in a pale grey followed by titanium white

the Cyprus Umber Dark on the right hand side got dabbed with the greys but the blotchy areas have come through so I'm going to add a little more to this one in the hopes of sorting some of that out

whether that will fix things or not I think I'm getting somewhere with the soft glowing area

this next one was also both Cyprus Green and  Cyprus Umber Dark and also uneven so I added the yellow ochre along with dark grey, light grey and a bit of white

and finally Dark Red Ochre layered on top of Cyprus Green and then folded a couple of times with the creases well pressed

the strong diagonal lines are intriguing with one area looking quite like a leaf

I'm using random pieces of cotton and linen from my scrap box and most of them are ones I didn't care too much...  makes it easier to be experimental and not get too worked up over making beautiful pieces of painted cloth 

when (and if) I do get the process figured out I'll invest in several metres of a good quality linen and paint with purpose but for now I'm just having fun, getting my hands dirty and trying out some different ideas

it's as good as being three, playing in the mud