Oh, Shift! Using pH Adjustments to Extract Pigment and Modify Colors From Madder
Some natural dyes are more sensitive than other to changes in pH. Both species of madder that I have been using recently, Rubia cordifolia and Rubia tinctoria (or tinctorum) fall into that category. In this post, I am specifically talking about Rubia cordifolia (RC), which is the species that grows in India and is widely used around the world today, though its historic uses stem from India, Africa, and, later, Europe. I started out with two different batches of RC. One appeared a golden yellow, almost like turmeric, when it arrived. The other appears more of a dark terra cotta color. Since the yellow one was already opened for a…
Soak ‘Em if you got ‘Em: Adventures in Mordant
Choosing and using mordants is a really broad topic, so I will be talking about it in chunks. In this segment, I’m talking specifically about the mordanting I did in preparation for dyeing silk and cotton with madder dye. For the sake of simplicity, let me start at the beginning. What is a mordant and why do we need it? The word mordant is related to the French word morder, “to bite.” A mordant is a substance that helps the pigment in the dye “bite” into the fiber and hold on. Dyeing fiber is a process of creating a molecular bond between fiber and pigment, and many natural dyes can’t make…
Watching it all go Scour
Fiber preparation is not one of the sexy parts of dyeing, but it’s a process that can improve your results significantly. It’s kind of like painting the walls in your house. You can skip the prep and go straight to the paint, but then you’ll probably spend the next two years noticing the hair and cobwebs you painted over, and finding little spots starting to peel. Like dyeing, doing a good job of prepping to paint is likely to take longer than the fun color part, but spending the extra time really does get you noticeably better results that last. So, I spent the last two days in my studio…
An Adventure Begins!
I have only started adding blog posts to this website, but those of you who have been following me on social media and through Griffin Dyeworks already know that this is a very exciting time for me! Last fall, I learned that I had earned a 14-week artist residency for natural dyeing at the Camera Obscura Art Lab (COAL) in Santa Monica, California. During my residency, I will be focused on working with madder dye, which produces a vibrant color range and, when done properly, color that lasts for centuries. I’ll be looking at historical and modern formulations and applications of madder dye while producing wearable art, upcycled art, and decorative…
