It works just like Sun Paper.
And with the same reasoning used for why one needs a 16th pair of black high heel shoes, I bought the dye in every color.
I came home and immediately gave it a try, painting an original artwork with a piece of clear acetate and India Ink, then placing it over the fabric painted with dye outside in the sun
It came out gorgeous and so I tucked the new project idea neatly away for the perfect class at a later date.
The perfect class seemed to be the Printmaking Workshop I ran at the studio last week.
I asked each parent to send their child with a white t-shirt so they could make a sun print of their own artwork to wear.
But since the students ranged in age from 5 to 11, I thought why not make it a bit easier for them and use Sharpie pens instead of the India Ink?
It'll be great!
Until it wasn't great.
This is what printed, TADA!!
terribly unsuccessful sun dye print on fabric
Thank goodness I had the kids do a test run on some scrap fabric first! I would have died if I ruined the t-shirts their parents had gone to all the trouble to buy for the class.
For all my, "embrace the mistakes", I preach to the kids, I panicked.
(although I'm quite intrigued with the way the masking tape printed on the left side of the above work and will be pursuing experimenting with creating an artwork with masking tape on acetate to use over the dye, so I guess I am embracing the mistake after all )
What went wrong?
Why didn't it work?
I knew I didn't want the kids to wait around while I figured it out and so I pulled out the gelatin plates I had made to start a monoprint project. I would figure out the sun dye fail once the kids had gone home for the day.
The prints are made with acrylic paint mixed with a bit of retarder, they turned out beautiful and most importantly, without a glitch!
Thank goodness!
6 year old
7 year old
11 year old
5 year old
7 year old
So once the artist had gone home for the night, I sat down and faced the fact that changing from India Ink to Sharpie pen was not a good idea.
I carefully went over every Sharpie line the artists created with India Ink, making sure I did not change the integrity of their work. It seemed unfair to have the kids have to redo everything after they had already worked so hard because of my blunder.
Then I did another test run on scrap fabric.
I refused to use their t-shirts until I was positive the project was going to work.
Lo and behold, mystery solved.
So if you want to do original artworks on acetate to print on either Sun paper or Sun dye, DO NOT use Sharpie pen. You MUST use India Ink.
So I went ahead and put the "test" fabric work on Bristol using matte medium so the girls could take it home. It only seemed right after how patient they had been when things weren't working for them to have their artwork to not only wear but also display.
6 year old (this is a fish caught in a droplet of water, sitting on a leaf)
7 year old
8 year old
11 year old
5 year old
And no, that is not an issue with my photography skills, the wolf is yellow. You see I wasn't quite done messing around with blunders and did the first scrap"test"on a heavy linen. It did not register as well as cotton and so I needed to redo it one more time and accidentally grabbed the yellow dye instead of the brown.
Honestly by this point, I didn't need a glass of wine but the whole bottle! Best for my health to just leave it at yellow and move on.
7 year old
And then the next morning, we FINALLY created their t-shirts and they couldn't wait to put them on after they had been washed and almost dried. They could of used another 10 minutes in the dryer, but camp day closing waits for no one...even slow dryers.
I certainly hope the artist enjoy them. Once I got the project back on track, they all turned out great.
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