Today was my first test with the clay recipe for creating a resist for a dip-dye technique. I have seen this done with indigo vat dip-dyeing, and so my hypothesis is that it can be achieved with a woad vat.
The test prints here will be dipped in a regular dye bath (rather than a woad or indigo vat, which involves reduction processes), so I can test the efficacy without wasting dye resources should it be unsuccessful or need adjustments. I have some readymade logwood dye left over from screen printing before, which I am happy to use up.
Clay Resist Paste Recipe
based on a technique by Kristin Arzt, which she uses with indigo vats
– 10g Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts)
– Dissolve salts in 50-100g of warm water
– Add 20g of gum arabic or Indalca (guar gum based)
– Add 30g of clay (from 50/50 mix of Kaolin and Bentonite)
Kristin Arzt comments that she has tried this clay resist in vats made with fructose, calcium hydroxide (lime), ferrous lime and thiox in the past and they all work well. I am likely to use a thiox vat when the time comes to use woad.
To make sure the clay passes through a screen successfully, we used the dummy screen again, which worked well. I kept the paste similar to a humus consistency to avoid bleed.
I painted some pieces of fabric with the paste, to test the paste without the screen first. Lastly we made some samples using the screen.
These needed to dry fully before testing them with a dip in the dye. Once dry (I used a hairdryer to speed this up) we put some logwood dye into a tray and carefully immersed the fabric into it for a limited 5 minute dip. Carefully removing the fabric and trying to get as much liquid out of the cloth as possible they were laid out to dry fully.
It was tricky to see if the clay would survive. On some samples it had definitely become slimy and I had to be really careful not to smudge it.