Color Gradation--A rainbow tee

[ecilA]

A rainbow dye was requested and it was to be somewhat unique.  It was a labor intensive tie-dye and the results are far from perfect but it seemed a good jumping off point for discussion of gradation through the rainbow.  Now as I said, it's far from perfect but I know why and how to overcome the issues that presented.



I thought it might be nice if those of us who do know stepped back a little to see if any of the newer dyers want to take a stab at it first.  And please, feel free to ask questions.

(p.s. sorry for the yellow cast, my photographer was a tad lazy and it was taken in less than favorable circumstances)

[deb]

  Alice, that is GORGEOUS!!!! I have "rainbow envy"!!! 

[ktaltre]

That is a nice rainbow T!!!!! Looks like a lot of work tying.
Did you use string or sinew or rubber bands?
Will try your rainbow, ecilA, thanks!
k. taltre

[ecilA]

That is a nice rainbow T!!!!! Looks like a lot of work tying. Did you use string or sinew or rubber bands?

It took a fair amount of time to tie and is secured with artificial sinew.  The "package" was very long and unwieldy, about 2 and a half to three feet, the shirt size L (fwiw).  And thank you to both you and Deb.  It was nice to do something a little different, this guy had another custom order that isn't photographed yet.  At anyrate, what I really wanted was smoother transition through the colors but I forgot an important thing...(and that's all I'm gonna say for now).

[zeppenwolf]

...the results are far from perfect...

OK.  But if you didn't tell us, we wouldn't have known.  It looks completely magnificent.  Those black lines really make it.  Great that they didn't bleed.

And please, feel free to ask questions.

Ok.  HOW DID YOU DO IT?   

[ktaltre]

Oh No! What was the important thing you forgot!?!?
We learn by doing, but we learn from others Too........
Yeah, I've been doing my "long" ties with sinew, like tom and martine's dvd.
Thank you ecilA.
k. taltre

[ecilA]

OK.  But if you didn't tell us, we wouldn't have known.  It looks completely magnificent.  Those black lines really make it.  Great that they didn't bleed.

Black over is really a neat technique and the funny thing (at least to me) is that it's almost scary when you start using it but it's really nice for adding depth to design.  As for "perfection", in ideal, there would be no white on that shirt, you can see a spot where I didn't use enough dye and that one is glaring to me.  The other thing was that I wanted smoother color transition from purple to green.  IMO, if the whole shirt had what the yellow to red has it would really be sweet.

Ok.  HOW DID YOU DO IT?   

This is where it gets frustrating.  My camera is broken and I thought I'd have my son take pictures of the process as I explained with visual aids.  Ugh.  He picked up the camera today to take a picture of the fresh sour dough and found his broken.  I'm feeling photo cursed.

Here's the basic gig.  Lay out the prepped (in this case washed, ashed and dried) shirt (or other fabric item) smoothly and then grab it at the shoulder.  Then grab the base of the shirt on the opposite corner.  Pull it out and smooth the other loose fabric downwards as well.  From there it is tied.  I secure, pull smooth, always remembering to straighten from that bottom corner to keep it on track in that direction and secure a little ways down.  After the entire shirt was secured I cut the sections in half by securing those midpoints.  In the end it had 66 sections so I had a nice number of them to move from color to color.  And then came the dye.  I really went about it in a kind of hit or miss way.  I mixed my standard rainbow and mixed small bottles of half and half colors (half yellow/orange, half orange/red etc).  To be honest I had my son helping and we did a lot of mixing as we went, not all half bottles were prepped in advance but for sake of explanation I headed off with that implication.  Basically I applied...yellow, yellow with a little squirt of orange, that bottle with a squirt more orange up til I was at half and half.  Then I added orange with each segment until I was at full orange.  Works very well on that end of the spectrum and I'll say more about that later.  After the whole shirt was rainbowed I squirted black all over it.  And actually...(yes, I know, this is me and how I do it) umm it was 8am after staying up all night.  The order was thrown at me at 10pm with a deadline that required immediate action and I had no shirts even ashed so it all started with a load in the washer (it was also not the only shirt ordered).  So it was 8am and we were both getting pretty goofy.  When it came to black over my son handed me the bottle and as I applied it...it looked kind of wrong.  It looked kind of wrong because it was navy and he'd handed me the wrong bottle.  I finished the navy over and then did black over that guessing that it would end up with a green cast over the entire thing, but apparently it was all good   (isn't it nice when THAT happens?)

[ecilA]

Oh No! What was the important thing you forgot!?!?
We learn by doing, but we learn from others Too........
Yeah, I've been doing my "long" ties with sinew, like tom and martine's dvd.
Thank you ecilA.
k. taltre

I've never seen that dvd, I should see if they have it at the library.

The important thing, first and foremost was that I forgot about the fact that I use twice as much dye when mixing purple, blue and green than I do when mixing yellow, orange and red.  That played heavily into the jump.  I also gave no thought to the haloing effect.  I often use it to my advantage but in this, halo was not handled correctly thus the turquoise bleed out that you see.

I'm tempted to offer to put the bigger image up on for anyone who wants to close up on it in a browser window.  LMK if that's of interest.

[Jaja]

I definitely love this design. I understand that you, being an author, see in there "mistakes" that others could freely enjoy as "extra bonus".

Your shirt gaves me this idea:
There are many skilled dyers in here. What about to do such friendly challenge of making ONE EXTRAORDINARY DESIGN in a month, each month would someone else's turn to make one.
(just non-traditional combination of tyeing and dye application, others may guess what was it)

Might be fun!

[ecilA]

I definitely love this design. I understand that you, being an author, see in there "mistakes" that others could freely enjoy as "extra bonus".

Your shirt gaves me this idea:
There are many skilled dyers in here. What about to do such friendly challenge of making ONE EXTRAORDINARY DESIGN in a month, each month would someone else's turn to make one.
(just non-traditional combination of tyeing and dye application, others may guess what was it)

Might be fun!

Hey Jaja, thanks!  Really, it's very nice that everyone is so appreciative of the shirt AND I do think it's a cool looking shirt.

It just presented some issues that I thought we could learn from, thus my critique...I admit to being a bit of a perfectionist, with this shirt I had a goal that was not met.

I like your idea but suggest that we open it up to presentation upon whim rather than lining up simply because I personally would hate to have the pressure of an expectation and then let the group down.

[Jaja]

I think it would be fun to step once in a while off the beaten track and explore some more.
At least we could discuss combination of folding/dye application that are unusual.

[deb]

Another approach you could take to color gradation is to use a dragonskin technique. I have one I did recently (I have to unearth it and take a pic) where I started with red at the top, then the next segment I did red on one side and orange on the other. For the following segments, I went down the rainbow sequence with one side a color behind the first like that, ending on purple/blue and then purple.

Does that make any sense, or do I need more coffee? 

*goes to laundry room to find shirt*

[fiberartist219]

Let me just say, HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME!!!

The white spots and the drop off from the dark blue to the turquoise give it dimension and keep it from being boring.

So, let me get this straight. You did the whole thing while it was tied up? When I first looked at it, I imagined that you did the color, then tied it up and then did the black. I had no idea. I always get tons of white spots when I tie things up, so I end up doing several steps if I don't want white.

I can't believe you did this on such a short deadline.

FYI, I was able to get a copy of Tom and Martine's DVDs at my local library. If you're interested, look for Tie Dye 101. I forget what they names of the other two are, but they build on the concepts of the first one. Some of it might be a little beginner-ish for you, but there are a lot of helpful tips in there.

Oh, and Jaja, that sounds like fun! If you do something along those lines, please notify me!

[zeppenwolf]

The white spots and the drop off from the dark blue to the turquoise give it dimension and keep it from being boring.

I concur wholeheartedly.

Those amounts of white and also the "imperfect" bleeding of that teal into the purple scream that "this is a hand-dyed item",  that "this is a natural thing"...  If it had come out "perfectly" I think it would have been less interesting.  Still impressive as heck, but less interesting, less awesome.

I want to be clear-- I'm speaking from the standpoint of aesthetics, not philosophy.  Those "imperfections" are what attract my Eye, not my Brain, to this otherwise "perfect" piece.

The perfections and the imperfections-- they work together.  That's what makes this a great shirt.

[mishoga]

That shirt is beautiful.