Eco-dying at the Ocean

We had a terrific time eco-dying at the ocean during the Creative Gents retreat.  We soaked both paper and muslin in soy milk, our mordant, before beginning the dying process. Once the papers and muslin dried we added vegetation on each page and on the long twelve inch wide muslin.  For the muslin part of the project we rolled the cloth and vegetation on copper pipes which were tied tight with twine.  

For the paper, we stacked paper and vegetation which were sandwiched between some book-board and tied  together to keep everything in place.  The rolled cloth and the paper sandwiches were then placed in a big pot which also had soy milk and some turmeric water.  The pot boiled for hours.  The cloth finished first.  I thought the muslin turned out OK. The papers turned out really well.  Alders leaves did a fantastic job of transferring to the paper.

We laid all the papers to dry on plastic. The result was amazing because the plastic left some marks on the dried papers.  There were also some numbers and letters on the plastic which transferred to some of the papers.  It was a fun project which I have done several times and will again.  It takes patience and one never knows how it will all turn out.