This particular post has been inspired by some of our regular readers so here’s a quick advance thank you. I really love it when comments lead to further exploration and sharing!

Just a few cautionary words before I go on. I dip in and out of dyeing, definitely a hobbyist and I purely play so my dyeing exploits are experimental. There are lots of great sites out there if you really want to dig deep or if, like me you sometimes just love to watch someone’s process on social media you could check out @thedogwooddyer or @sashaduerr or @joanne_green_art on Instagram. Joanne has recently published a book which I would love to get hold of – it’s all about pigments. I have Sasha Duerr’s book; Natural Palettes and although it focuses on plants grown around California, there’s plenty of botanical commonality going on. It can be hard to believe that it’s Ireland I am talking about – and yes we do have some specimen Californian Redwoods here!

Second cautionary note: please exercise caution when dyeing and keep all of your dyeing equipment separate to your cooking equipment. It’s very important. Also, just because something is natural doesn’t automatically mean it is safe to handle without gloves or a mask. We recently had to burn wood in our pit. I extracted the charcoal and made some lye as an experiment. The pH is such that if it lands on skin it will feel like soap, lovely and soft, but what is happening is that it is dissolving the outer layer of skin! But please don’t be deterred by this. Just exercise caution and common sense and all will be grand!

When I started looking around for something to play with for this blog post I found some fallen branches from one of our cedar trees. I stripped the bark and left it to soak with the intention of throwing some fibres straight into the mix as the high level of tannins in the dye lot would mean that I did not have to heat the mix for it to work. After about a week soaking the mix I made the mistake of stirring it without gloves on. The resin in the mix started irritating my skin (yes, I learned a lesson that day). So it was back to the drawing board to find something safer to extract the dye from. (I haven’t yet learned how to extract the resin from the mix!)

This time I decided to opt for something most of us have at our disposal – compost! Onion skins to be more precise. I have been collecting these for quite some time (we are talking months here – I have been storing them in a cotton bag and they kept perfectly!). I had approximately 110g of skins which I just threw in a huge stock pot (used only for dyeing). I filled it three quarters way with water – not particularly scientific, probably around 6 litres, and put it on a low heat for about 4 hours. During this time I should have checked it (oops, I forgot!) but it was fine. It came to a rolling simmer. By this time it was bed time so I just turned it off and left it overnight to cool and then drained off the skins. There still appears to be colour left in the skins so I popped them into a nylon bag and left them to dry on the washing line – I will try to extract more dye another day.

The colour was a lovely rich colour – like a golden red. So I decided to extract the pigment from 1 litre of the liquid and use the rest for sample dyeing. I will hold on to the dyeing section for my next post as otherwise this will get a little too long and boring for you to read.

 

Let’s start with the pigment making. We are talking natural dyeing here. Extracting the pigment from the dye liquid involves introducing a few ingredients which bind the molecules to themselves and cause them to separate from the liquid. First I am using an acid (alum) (which can also be used as a mordant on fabric and fibre to prepare the surface for dyeing). Then I add an alkaline solution (soda crystals). The two chemicals react and the pigment separates and sinks to the bottom. This can fizz up so make sure there’s plenty of room in the container.  (Remember those great lava making experiments done back in the to encourage kids into science? You get my drift). The liquid is drained off then the remaining pigment is left to drain in a coffee filter. Once drained, the colour can be filtered in distilled water, dried, ground et voila! Pigment.

So, what do you need for this. As we are playing we will work in small quantities:

• 1 litre of dye liquid (filtered to remove all the plant material)
• Alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) You will have to check where you can source this as it differs depending on location. Like me, you may need to buy online.
• Soda crystals (I also use these to clean my washing machine so I can buy them in homeware shops)
• pot and cooker to heat the liquid
• 2 Litre jug that can withstand hot liquid.
• Glass jars (if you are patient, you will fit everything in 1 jar
• Funnel
• Coffee filter
• Spoons (measuring and stirring)
• weighing scales
• pestle and mortar
• boiling water
• distilled water

1. Heat the dye liquid but don’t let it boil
2. Add the alum to a container then add boiling water and stir to dissolve the crystals. This may take a little while so be patient and make sure they are thoroughly dissolved. Quantities? My research has shown that this very much depends on the plant material, but a good starting point is 10% alum to liquid. I used 10 grams here.
3. Carefully (don’t burn yourself!) pour the dye liquid into the large jug. I tend to do this at the sink. Then add the alum liquid and stir well.
4. Now dissolve the soda crystals in boiling water. I used 5g here. Once dissolved add this to the big jug and stir. You may notice a fizzing chemical reaction.
5. Leave the solution to cool and separate. The pigments will sink to the bottom of the jug. The liquid on top should be clear. If it is not, it means that there is some pigment left in it and you could choose to play further with this liquid, once it is drained off. (In other words, repeat the steps outlined above).
6. Carefully pour off as much of the liquid as you can, without disturbing the pigment.
7. Set up your glass jar: place the funnel into it and then add the coffee filter to the funnel. Make sure that the funnel is not hitting the bottom of the jar – we want the drained liquid to escape through the bottom
8. Next slowly pour the wet pigment into the coffee filter. I find if I hurry at this, the filter can disintegrate so I let the filter soak up some of the damp as I am pouring.
9. Leave this overnight so that the water has mostly drained off and the pigment remains.
10. Now if you are planning to store your pigment, it is recommended that it is washed at least twice with distilled water and filtered through fresh coffee filters. This is to remove any unwanted mineral salts from the pigment. I am only playing so I did not bother with this step. I know that if this whets your appetite to find out more, you will remember this step.
11. The next step can be done either when the pigment is completely dry or getting there, scrape it into a mortar (bowl). Once completely dry start grinding using the pestle but be sure to wear a mask for this part as the dust is quite fine.
12. I store my pigments in tiny glass jars (yes, you guessed 1 litre doesn’t produce a lot but it makes up for it in satisfaction!).  Make sure to label and date.
13. These can be mixed with a binding agent (note: they are insoluble in water). Here is a good article if you would like to find out more about different binding agents https://inbedwithmonalisa.com/i-pigments-a-little-bit-about-binders-and-making-your-paint/

I have put together a slide show on the process I used.

This is the basic process. Colours can be altered before making the pigment by introducing an acid or an alkali and if this is of interest to you, it will be worth doing a bit of research.

I have, in a way, put the cart before the horse here, as I am showing you the process of making the pigment before running through the fabulous colours I achieved with this in dye form. But a promise is a promise and I wanted to deliver so I hope on this occasion you can forgive me. The general ‘rule’ that I have found is to use 10% of the volume of the dye as the binder. So for every 1 litre of dye liquid use 10 grams of alum. Then use 5 grams of soda crystals (or similar) and let the substance perform its magic. This is a good starting point. But like all rules a bit of flexibility can be needed so these figures can change and this is where experience comes into play (knowing what adjustment is needed for different plants). Most importantly, your curiousity and willingness to play comes to the fore here. Just give it a go and have lots of fun.

Helene

A little post script before this blog is published:

Since my adventures with onion skins, I decided to experiment with the yellow Chrysanthemums flowers from a lovely bouquet that had seen better days and was destined for the compost heap. I used the same ratio of alum and soda crystals only this time I didn’t hold back some of the dye material for fabrib experimentation and I made up pigment with the full dye bath. Here is the result:

I may have mentioned this last year, but we have a farmer who grows a number of acres of sunflowers every summer. It’s done for charity and it is open to the public to come along, pick the sunflowers and make a donation to the Hospice Foundation. There’s an honesty box on site. It is a form of Meitheal – part of Irish culture where people help others out. By the time I arrived last week, a lot of the sunflowers had ‘gone over’. That said, after a lot of searching I found some that had yet to open and I was very pleased. So I picked and made my donation. Once home I started cutting off the lower leaves and I cut some of the stems so that they would look better in the vase. Rather than discard the waste I decided to run a little experiment. I slowly brought them to the boil. The smell was not particularly nice so I let everything cool down outside. I found I had a lot of liquid (and plenty of dark green dye), so I reduced down the liquid by heating it up again. (I did this out doors this time!). Then I made my pigment. It’s hard to see from the photos but it is a lovely dark green. I worked with a little over 2 litres of liquid. As you can see, it doesn’t produce a lot of pigment but it is very concentrated:

I have decided to treat myself to Joanne Green’s new book Natural Watercolor Paint Making. I have followed her for a long time on Instagram and love her short videos on how she makes pigment. She had followed this up with a book about the process and I could not be happier. I heard from the book store that it is on its way to me so I’m quite excited about that. Please let me know if you would like me to review it in my next post.

hugs

Helene