Dyeing to Discharge: Day 4

Yesterday was the 4th day of class. Time is flying by--faster than usual. The sample books are all done and it will be a valuable reference. As I was replaying the day in my head last night I started thinking about the work hanging on my design wall at home. One of the things that I wanted to accomplish this week was to work on new ideas for how I would add complexity to that composition through discharge. I've got some ideas, so mission accomplished.

Yesterday we did more immersion discharge with both bleach and thiox. I also did some dye painting and printing so that I would have pieces to discharge today. One piece is a 22" x 80" piece of silk habotai that I stretched over the ground in the parking lot and rolled with thickened black dye. It's fantastic. I'm going to need to find a cracking asphalt surface at home to work on--discretely of course.

Well, I promised photos, so here's a shot of two severely bound pieces of silk before going into a thiox discharge bath.

And, this one shows two shibori poles wrapped with T shirts in a bleach bath. The brown one is mine. It has since been overdyed while still on the pole. Speaking of which, I've got to run to the studio now for the last day of class. There's lots of washing out to do this morning. Should be an exciting day with so many pieces coming to completion.