Sun Bleaching

I have recently discovered a process called sunbleaching, and have been having a blast. It involves a photo sensitive dye, sunlight, water, things to lay on the fabric and absorbing agents like salt and rice, and some time to babysit the items until they dry.

The dye moves thru the wet fabric--so the wetter the fabric the more movement and contrast achieved--until it dries. The dye moves out from under where you have created shadow towards the light, completely the opposite of what 'sunbleaching' brings to mind. This does not create the shirt that got left over your back dash too long.

The picture above was my first, the table I made it on still bears the imprint of the process, which is fine with me, but the concrete out back is going to have to be bleached bc it does not wash out once it has been heat set in the sun all day, so most of my creations have since been laid on plastic bags, grocery bags for one sided shirts and large black garbage bags opened up for long swatches of fabric. It was made by first diluting the dye and in this case I used the colors as they came out of the bottles. Next by wetting the fabric and using a 2" wide foam brush to paint long swatches of color. Then by laying on pieces of thick paper i found in the scrapbooking department at Joann's, and fake fern leaves around the large paisley piece on the left. Where the paper made direct contact w the fabric as it dried the dye moved completely away from the shadows, and where the fern leaves were laying the effect is softer bc they did not make direct contact w the fabric.

As I've promised I will be discussing the processes here, problems and discoveries, as well as tips, and as always if you know more than I do please let me know! My first blunder here was a 'duh'. I achieved the results to the right by painting, then crinkling the fabric and laying a large paper paisley shape for scrapbooking on top. The end process was distorted for the paper shape but spectacular for the crinkling. Bc the fabric was very wet the dye had more time to move to the light and created some very 3d effects. The cloth is laying completley flat here.

This piece of fabric was painted w the dyes, I didn't dilute them as much as with the first batch so the colors are more bold. I started w/ a box of limited dye colors and mixed my own shades and variations. Then I 'pleated' the fabric by carefully folding areas long ways on the fabric, creating shadows, then for extra effect and bc the fabric was thin and starting to dry on the black garbage bag, i brushed over the high points w the khaki green i mixed. The left pic is in process and the right pic is the fabric finished and for sale at the Drum Circle i vend at on full and new moons.

This Piece I got a little more inventive w the colors, applying them w a two inch wide foam brush to save on time. First I painted it, crinkled it, let it partially dry, then straightened it out and crinkled it again to finish drying. You can get a rough idea in the pic below of what it looks like after heat setting w an iron and washing it. The dark colors show up a bit better when it's not being used as a background in my booth at Lake Eola Farmer's Market, every Sun 10-4 in downtown Orlando.

This green fabric has been painted, the yellows and greens blended, then pleated short ways. While the fabric is still very wet i sprinkled large rock salt--here i used ice cream salt--

which causes the liquid to flow and creates the effect shown here.

The fabric below was also salted while wet. This is a very crucial factor in the 'flow' patterns. If the fabric is already starting to dry the patterns will not be as pronounced and you will end up w a solid color.