Wild, Wild West Challenge #1

Strata after ice dyeing

To make the challenge piece I was inspired to make an impression of the Grand Canyon by making strata in a variety of fabrics including upholstery samples.

I scoured them by washing in Synthrapol to remove the Scotchguard or Teflon treatment, then piece strips onto a muslin foundation.

The work was soaked in soda ash solution then taken out of the solution and placed in the bottom of a rectangular bucket, slightly scrunched.

A LARGE bag of ice was dumped over the top.  Then several different colours of procion dye were sprinkled onto the ice.

Here’s how the strata looked after it came out of the dye bath after 12 hours of soaking.  There was still a little ice floating on top of the melted water but I wanted to get on and knew it would take a long time to dry because of the heavier fabrics in the work.

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