September already, and that can only mean one thing. Yes, that supermarkets are filling up with bumper sized tubs of chocolate assortments and shelves of festive tat, much of it plastic. Okay, perhaps it's time for two things. The first stirrings of Christmas retail lunacy - yes - but also this challenge run by GelliArts. I was thinking of coming up with a September arty challenge of my own devising, but this will fit the bill nicely. I probably won't manage to gell print everyday, but I'll try to one way or another tick off each prompt throughout the month.
I've not had the most active Sunday, but I did dye a couple of pieces of cotton material as I wanted to see what depth of colour I could get from using blackberries. I'd a jar of rusty water - haven't we all! - and added that to a bowl in the hope that it might act as a kind of mordant, to fix the colour. (The jam jar was filled with water and a couple of rusted metal scraps dropped in a few weeks ago. I'd been watching a video on solar dyeing and the person had used this liquid in her dyeing process.) Odd sections from a charity shop dress were dropped into the bowl, along with a handful of blackberries, and left for several hours.
After a while I couldn't wait any longer, so rinsed out the fabric and pegged it on the washing line to dry.
This photo doesn't give an accurate representation of the actual colour the cotton was dyed. It's more of a dusky plum. I thought I might've got a deeper Ribena purple, but I'm still happy with the results. I've added more blackberries to the bowl, and have added another piece of white cotton. I'll leave that to soak overnight, and let's see what, if any, difference that makes to the resulting colour.
The cover of the book I finished this afternoon seems quite appropriate with its black and violet and plum cover. It was written in 1939, and you might've come across the film version of it, starring Deborah Kerr and Jean Simmons. In fact it's difficult to read the story and not see those actresses faces and hear their voices when reading Rumer Godden's prose. The book's dated, especially in some attitudes of the religious sisters toward the 'natives' in the Himilayas where they establish a convent. However, it's still very much worth reading. The tension steadily builds. Life at the convent unravels. It turns out that the film was very true to the book, which was remarkable given how much of 'Black Narcissus' is about what's going on inside the women's minds. Their internal world, as important as the external setting of the windswept hilltop palace with its proximity to the overwhelming presence of the mountains.
The next book pulled out of my To-Be-Read pile takes me back to the more familiar ground of Victorian England. I hope it's as compelling as Rumer Godden's India.
Comments
Post a Comment