Colour Palette of the Month - November!

Colour Inspirations from Urban Landscapes
At the beginning of October I had a lovely week-end in London.  On the Saturday I wanted to go to the Tate Modern to see the Gaugan Exhibition and decided to walk along part of the Embankment to the Millenium Bridge.
Along the way I came across quite a few juxtapositions of old buildings and new buildings as you can see on the right.  This particular one really caught my eye with the "all glass" building that takes on an indigo colour in the background and the beautiful old building, with it's sand coloured brick and detailing stone work.
How lovely this colour palette would be in natural dyes and weave!  From the top I'd use indigo with an iron modification; indigo on it's own, but dipped several times to build up the deep blue; a very light, quick dip in indigo with a very quick and light modification with iron to get the blue grey; Oak Gall modified with citric acid; cutch.
Mm..... This has really got me thinking!  What about you, what would you use?

Colour Palette of the Month - October

Last month I took my daughter to University in Aberdeen, while there we visited the Winter Gardens, a series of Victorian glass houses in Duthie Park south of the city.

I love anthuriums, they are a recurring theme in my work.  They are such strong flowers, strong in form, shape and colour and are the inspiration for this months colour palette. I worked on this palette when we got back from Aberdeen and just before we went to exhibit at 100% Design.  By coincidence one of the strong colours at the show was magenta!

I hope you enjoy this palette with or without the green I’ve added as a contrast.  Green's not an easy colour to get accurately in natural dyes, but it's worth a try to get one of these greens, so try indigo with dhak.  For the magenta try a little purple lac for the pale version at the bottom and with a little copper water for the second from the bottom.  For the dark colour how about trying a short indigo dip with red lac at 4%.