The Perfect Olive Green

All of my dyeing last week consisted of various attempts at mixing a good olive green from the primary Sabracron fiber reactive dyes I had on hand. Olive is generally not difficult to mix. I was, though, using formulas I devised years ago for acid dyes with the reactive dyes, and I've deduced that the fiber reactive colors in themselves react differently than acid dyes do when mixed in certain proportions.

For instance, with acids, to get a good olive, I would mix Sabraset sun yellow with either royal blue or turquoise in a proportion of 7 yellow to 1 blue/turquoise, then add 1 part scarlet or magenta. The red in the green turns it toward brown, resulting in olive. Another option is to mix 2 or 3 parts of black into 6 or 7 parts of sun yellow.

None of the formulas for olive which included red worked with the Sabracron dyes -- I don't know whether Procion dye would be any different, it all likely depends on which red and which blue, and even which yellow you start with. At any rate, I did a shibori dye as well as several low water immersion experiments with the red-included olive green, and all turned out kind of a medium reddish brown.

So my last experiment was a shibori dyepot using 8 parts sun yellow and 3 parts black ~ and the upshot is that I got a really great olive green. Here are some of my results...

I've got so many projects going at the moment and so many things I want to do for the first time, or do again (like monoprinting, gelatin plate printing, deconstructed screen printing, ad infinitum) that I'm in a bit of overwhelm. I am working this week on the second quilt of three utilizing digital imagery.

I also have a solo show coming up in July and August that I'm starting to prepare for. This one will be at Cochrane & Associates, a brokerage firm in Eureka. I'll be hanging a mix of art cloth and studio quilts. Although all the pieces are complete, some need to be made ready to hang. July is still almost a month and a half away, but being proactive, I like to get a jump start on these things so I'm not slammed at the end, if at all possible. I also have two unfinished art cloth pieces that I would like to bring to completion to include in the show.