4. BioChromes

Research, References & Inspiration

I've recently visited Teotitlan del Valle,Oaxaca, a place known for it Looms wool made. They are many different workshops, some have lot of history, and come form generations and generations, and others are a little bit newer. I personally visited “The Bug in the Rug” , this is the workshop of the famous Isaac Vazquez ,he was awarded one of the best weavers of México for his amazing work. But what his workshop has also special is that he keeps all pigments natural, they come from either plants, bark or insects, just like our pre-Hispanic ancestors did.

Photos from @isaacvasquezstudio

Because of how amazing it is what he did, he appeared in publications like the New York Times, National History, and the book “Manos Mexicanas, maestros del Arte popular”.
I found very interesting how he achieved all this colors, all from a natural source, the process that each of them takes and how he developed variants that goes from stronger to lighter shades; or completely different colors even coming from the same source. There is a very interesting process to archieve different types of blue, that the more it is in contact with air, thee bluer it will turn.

Dean, J. (2010). Wild color: The complete guide to making and using natural dyes (Rev. ed., p. 15). Watson-Guptill.

So, for this week I wanted to use some color sources completely Mexican, I selected one of the most known, Cochineal (only the females); and one I find very interesting because when boil it gives a very beautiful purple, Muicle

I am currently making my social service in an Ethnobotanic Garden, in this place they focus among other things in the research of birds, plants and insects. They have a section of many different species of plants and trees, some of them selected to preserve the fauna, like some species of butterflies, bees, birds, etc. others just so they can keep reproducing them… including a Prickly pear, I had the opportunity of seeing the Cochineal alive, they are a few, but they are there alive!.

So, because this place focused also in spreading information, they have some little activities or workshops regarding medicinal plants, infusions, how to plant, etc, including the amazing of natural pigments like Cochineal... I asked if they could give me a few that were already dried so I can experiment with the colorimetrical for this week. On the other hand, they also have the plant of Muicle, this I personally recollected.

Process and workflow

Prepare the fabric

For this week´s assigment we work as a team so we could have more colors!, go check their webasites:

Sam

Montse

Alberto

We first cut some squares of linen and wool, each of 10x10cm

Before anything we prepared the fabric. It takes two different steps: First wash all the squares with distillated water and bicarbonate; let it boil for 1hr. The relationship is: Total weight fabric ------100%

Bicarbonate------------2%

And adding 2lt of distillated water

Then, prepare a second solution with mordanting (in this case, Alumbre) and distillated water; let it boil for 1hr. The relationship is:

Total weigh fabric ------100%

Mordent------------------10%

Adding 2lt of distillated water

What do I mean by preparing the fabric? Well, we need to remove any factory residual, dirt, oils, anything that can be a factor of the fabric not taking the color. Also help them be able to fix the color into the fabric.

Ingredients & Recipes

Natural dye- Muicle

The first thing is to boil the Muicle leaves (10gr) in distillated water (1lt) for 25min. This specific plants when boil takes two different colors, the ones that are underwater stay green, and the ones that are over the water turn blue, this is an interesting reaction, taking into consideration that the final result relies more to oranges and purples and the water goes more to a magenta color.

After the leaves release all the color, I took a sample and divided it in two different Petry plates, 3 drops each. We added a drop of Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and Hydrochloric acid (HCI), to see the different fiscal changes in the color they would have, measuring the ph. of all the solutions

After making those two samples, I went bigger to prepare the solutions to dye the fabrics.

Prepare this recipe [^1] by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

Brown/Orange Muicle

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 80 gr Muicle+Distillated water solution
• 8 gr Hydrochloric acid (HCI)

Purple Muicle

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 86 gr Muicle+Distillated water solution
• 29 gr Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)

Pigment-Cochineal

How does it work? Well, the Prickly pear has that color on the inside, that is why some tunas are kind of magenta, so as the Females Cochineal feeds for it, they kind of turn that color on the inside. And it is a very reactive source of color, since any variant in the ph. will give a totally different color.

Different to the Muicle, I will work with Cochineal as a pigment in powder.

So, the first thing to do would have been to dry it. But in this case, I skipped that step, so with a little ceramic mortar I crushed it until it was all a fine powder.

I experimented not just with the two components we all were working, but also with lemon and baking soda, to make a comparison. I did this because when I visited the Workshop in Oaxaca, they made the demonstration of how the color change with those two components, so I wanted to try it. I did it with small samples to observe how much I would need to use, I started by using 2gr of Cochineal in each Petry glass, and then use 2 drops of al liquids, and 1gr of baking soda.

It is incredible how much colors a tiny sample can provide, that’s is why I didn't have to add too much of both cochineal or the Sodium Hydroxide and Hydrochloric acid to change de color. I tried with my samples to see if it will color wood, and so it did!

Then I did my recipes to dye the fabric, I did the four versions, plus the normal one

This case was a little different than with the Muicle, because I didn’t make a solution with the natural pigment and distillated water, so I added individually the amount of water to each recipient.

Acid Cochineal-red/pink

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 2 gr Cochineal powder
• 78 gr Distillated water
• 8 gr Hydrochloric acid (HCI)

Lemon Muicle-intense orange/red

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 2 gr Cochineal powder
• 78 gr Distillated water
• 8 gr Lemon juice

Sodium Cochineal-purple

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 2 gr Cochineal powder
• 78 gr Distillated water
• 8 gr Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)

Baking Soda Muicle-magenta

• 37 gr fabric (2 squares:1 linen, 1 wool of 10X10)
• 2 gr Cochineal powder
• 78 gr Distillated water
• 1 gr Baking soda

24hrs later

Muicle

Cochineal

The next day I took them out of the containers and lay them in a bowl after squeezed them. I took one by one, putting the name tag of the previous container on the side of the bowl, so I would know which one was each of them and don’t confuse them. And the day after that I place them in a flatter surface with the tag on top of both fabrics.

When they completely dried, I stapled to each the source and the component that I added so I would know in a future how I archieve each color.

Results

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