Week 4: Biodyes + Biomaterials

The biodying process can be summarised into 4 steps. Because different materials were used ( animal and protein based) different processes had to be used.

1) I prepared 16 pieces in total; 8 Alpaca fibre and 8 linen pieces.

ANIMAL: Boil the material with 2 teaspoons of baking soda

PLANT: Soak the material in soap (neutral pH)

2) Mordant: Some pieces were treated with mordant (to show the difference of using mordant vs. not using it). The materials were weighed in order to determine how much mordant would be used. All material samples of the whole group were boiled with about 2g of mordant. The mordant used was Tartaric Acid

3) Dye: I chose to use beetroot as my dye and I prepared it by cutting up the beetroot very fine (in order to increase surface area). It was then boiled for about 45 minutes. I extracted the dye by sieving out the solid pieces. At this stage I was quite hopeful of making a good dye, as the beetroot liquid was very rich in colour and dark.

4) Modifier: the final step was to add different modifiers. We used vinegar, copper and iron.

Iron: Simmer for 30 minutes with Iron capsules (from a drugstore)

Coppper: Simmer in 200ml copper liquor (which consists of 2/3 vinegar + 1/3 water) for 30 minutes.

Vinegar: Simmer in for 30 minutes

Result: I did expect the result to be a bit more successful but the colour didn't really stay ver well. After the initial dying the pieces were a nice nude pink colour but after the modifying process it changed the colour.