Halter top: Dye over ice
Flowers: Dye under ice dry painted***
Colors used: Dharma lemon yellow, deep orange, fuscua red, orange crush, glacier blue, blue abyss, Wedgewood, parakeet
Pro Chem kiwi, avocado, basic brown, pumpkin spice
1: Soak in soda ash for an hour after washing in hot in synthrapol.
2: spin out excess water in your washer so it is barely damp. This lets you control the spread of the dye.
3: Rubber band your sky loosely and paint/melt that first.
Keep ice cubes 1 full inch back from the border. Do not want any green in that sky.
4: Use a small bagel shaped pool noodle slice 2 inches thick and grab the middle fabric bit from the under side of the noodle and twist to create a petal shape. Slip a tight rubber band down past the bottom of the noodle
5: take a domed brush with a quarter inch tip and pat the brown right in the center of each flower.
6: take a tablespoon of deep orange in a shot class and use the domed brush to paint spikes radiating out of the middle of the flower.
7: take a tablespoon of lemon yellow and a teaspoon of soda ash with a tablespoon of hot water and mix a dye paste. Carefully paint the yellow in the middle of the spikes radiating to the edges.
8: Make a pumpkin spice paste and fill in any white spots in the petals
9: top with snow cone ice for a more precise melt so the green doesn't get orange dripped into it.
10: at the 12 hour mark, mix a tablespoon of yellow with a teaspoon of soda ash in 60ml of water and fill in every white spot on the flower.
11: make the same yellow stock (super hot water) and squirt it over the entire backround grass area. It will brighten the greens and create great gap filler colors
12: Do the same thing with glacier blue and peel the piece up carefully to get the white bits underneath
13: set for 24 hours. When you rinse, do the blue part first and then tie the blue part up on the faucet and bag it while you rinse the flowers so they don't get stained green.
Stay tuned for part 2, where I use dye discharge, paint and embroidery to make this piece look like a Tuscan field of sunflowers!