![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labricoleuseIn Shipwrecked, there are a couple of scenes in which china silk serves to create bodies of water onstage. Set designer Robin Vest wanted the silk to be mottle-dyed to look like waves of ocean water. I knew it was going to be a very similar project to the dyeing of the sunset silk yardage for The Little Prince, two years ago.
The only place such a thing could happen is in my dye shop, and even though these lengths of fabrics are not costume pieces, i always gladly agree to dye such things for the folks in sets/props, because that's part of what being a member of a collaborative team is about!
Here's a quick pictorial on how crafts artisan Claire Fleming and i dyed the ocean.
Meredith Rapkin, PRC's props supervisor, purchased about 100 yards of turquoise China silk and had her assistants stitch it into a gigantic square. GIGANTIC. Then Claire and i saturated it in a solution of water and acetic acid (white vinegar) and laid it out all scrunchified on my dyeshop steel table, as seen above.
Claire used our mixing box and a particle mask to mix up two colors of acid dyestuff in solution--a darker true blue, and a blue green. We then used turkey basters to squirt it onto the bunched up fabric, as seen above.
I try to always use three values of color in creating an effect like this--more values create a richer depth to the fabric onstage under theatre lights--fewer values wash out to look very flat and uninteresting.
We covered the table and fabric in plastic and let it sit overnight, so the dye would have maximum time to bond with the silk fibers. Then we rinsed it out on a gentle cycle with a bit of Synthrapol in the dye shop washing machine.
Scott Ripley as Louis de Rougemont
All of the value differences you see on the fabric in the above stage shot are created with our dye effect. There's no pattern projected onto it at all!
This kind of thing is super quick and easy to do, and results in an amazing effect.
The only place such a thing could happen is in my dye shop, and even though these lengths of fabrics are not costume pieces, i always gladly agree to dye such things for the folks in sets/props, because that's part of what being a member of a collaborative team is about!
Here's a quick pictorial on how crafts artisan Claire Fleming and i dyed the ocean.
Meredith Rapkin, PRC's props supervisor, purchased about 100 yards of turquoise China silk and had her assistants stitch it into a gigantic square. GIGANTIC. Then Claire and i saturated it in a solution of water and acetic acid (white vinegar) and laid it out all scrunchified on my dyeshop steel table, as seen above.
Claire used our mixing box and a particle mask to mix up two colors of acid dyestuff in solution--a darker true blue, and a blue green. We then used turkey basters to squirt it onto the bunched up fabric, as seen above.
I try to always use three values of color in creating an effect like this--more values create a richer depth to the fabric onstage under theatre lights--fewer values wash out to look very flat and uninteresting.
We covered the table and fabric in plastic and let it sit overnight, so the dye would have maximum time to bond with the silk fibers. Then we rinsed it out on a gentle cycle with a bit of Synthrapol in the dye shop washing machine.
Scott Ripley as Louis de Rougemont
All of the value differences you see on the fabric in the above stage shot are created with our dye effect. There's no pattern projected onto it at all!
This kind of thing is super quick and easy to do, and results in an amazing effect.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 07:16 pm (UTC)Where's the heat?
I thought acid dyes required heat + acid to bond to silk. No?
Color me confused!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 07:24 pm (UTC)http://www.prochemical.com/directions/MX%20PDF/Silk%20Painting.pdf
...to get the results we did.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 07:28 pm (UTC)Hmm... now how to use this to my advantage... hmmm. (Goes off to stare at dye containers)