Backgrounds for Faces of India

The weather has been awful and I have had trouble settling to anything. That is not unusual at this time of the year with the shorter, cooler and often wet days. Ii am very photosensitive and find this time of year challenging unless I set myself a prescribed target. I have almost finished the Indigo worker in my Faces of India series so decided to create some more background pieces for the next few portraits.

I am working on eco dyed cotton - old sheets to be exact so preparation is quite a business. The fabric must be scoured to remove any washing powder or softener residues and then the fabric needs to be treated with a tannin bath. I use sumac as it does not affect the colour of the fabric like some other tannins. The tannin must be extracted by boiling and then the fabric immersed for about an hour. Following this the fabric is treated to a potassium aluminium sulphate bath for about the same time. I usually pre-prepare fabric and then dry and store in a labelled bag.

It is almost too late to be gathering good leaves for eco dying. My liquidambar was almost destroyed in cyclone Gabriel last summer and many of the maples have already fallen. But I am not looking for perfect imprints. I am aiming at more natural shapes and colours to provide an organic background to the brighter machine stitching. I think I may have used too strong an iron blanket in this lot as the fabric has quite a dull grey cast but it will still be useful. The piece on the left was rolled and dyed in the microwave for 3 minutes. I haven’t used the microwave before and it may have needed a bit longer to extract the leaf details. The yellow is from a few onion skins I introduced for variance.

The other pieces were rolled around an piece of pipe and steamed in my fish steamer for an hour and a half. The imprints are quite dark due to the iron blanket but they will be good contrast for some of the brighter coloured clothing.

The next portrait I am going to start is “the astrologer” and he has a bright orange urban and gold tunic so one of the more somber fabric pieces should make a good foil for that. I have found some of my portraits are a little large so I am now scaling them down before I print them on inkjet OHP transparencies for transference to the eco dyed fabric. I will stabilise the back of the area where the portrait will be stitched and mount in a hoop to try and minimise puckering.

I use cotton for these prints because silk would be too fragile to take the heavy machine stitching that is involved. Silk would be easier to eco dye but I am stubborn and want to use recycled material where possible and bed sheets are a good option. I can often pick up single 100% cotton sheets at the thrift store for minimal amounts and with the cost of living biting keeping my art spending in line is a very real consideration.