Color from Mordants

In natural dyeing, mordants can be used to shift the color of the dye, and give magical, some times unexpected, but definitely exciting results!
For this piece of silk, I first did an immersion dye in a bath of  expired lilac flowers.  I harvested these in early fall, so the remains were very dry.  Next, I silk screened some of the motifs with iron and some with copper and overdyed in a bath of madder root, giving the silk ghost images of the motif in a greenish brown from the copper and grayish pink from the iron.   I then silk screened the motif again with madder and with black walnut.  The multi-layering  created a subtle dimensional quality to the silk.
 


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