ECO COLOUR /ANGLAIS (MURDOCH BOOKS) - Hardcover

FLINT INDIA

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1741960797 ISBN 13: 9781741960792

Publisher: INTERART, 2008

Synopsis

This book by internationally renowned dyer, costumier and artist India Flint draws on her two decades of experience and experimentation in natural dyeing techniques to present an expert, highly accessible and achievable handbook of ecologically sustainable plant dye methods using renewable resources - most of them to be found in the average home garden. Eco Colour uses an exciting range of projects to demonstrate a variety of techniques, many of which have been specially developed by the author. Projects range from the simplest imaginable (solar dyeing, in which the fabric and dye material are placed in a closed jar and left for a few weeks in a sunny spot) to the positively romantic (dyeing with 'ice flowers'). Beautifully crafted, inspirational garments and homewares are used as the basis for dyeing techniques that produce a boundless range of pure, gentle, natural colourways.

About this title

About the Author

India Flint is a designer, artist, writer, and sheep farmer. Her work has been greatly influenced by her extensive travels--from Melbourne to rural Austria to Montreal. She is known for the development of the highly distinctive eco-print, an ecologically sustainable plant-based printing process giving brilliant color to cloth. Flint has been working with plant dyes for more than twenty years, and she has artwork in a myriad of collections and museums in Australia, Latvia, and Germany. She currently lives in South Australia.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* One of the most elegantly designed crafts books to debut this year, with a sophisticated layout and color photographs that capture well the ecological sensitivities of the artist. Though the art of dyeing has long been associated with natural materials, South Australian first-time author (and creator of hand-made “slow” fashion) Flint maximizes the use of renewable resources while minimizing most harmful footprints. On occasion, she goes to extremes, justifying, for instance, the use of wood to heat boiling-dye waters. Yet there’s much valuable information on every page, in every illustration, throughout each chapter; the author’s very careful orientation to the subject, beginning with collecting plants and finishing with special effects and fabric care and feeding, educates and energizes. Notes about history and practical applications (say, the production of indigo and the creation of natural blues through woad plants) are balanced with charts of traditional dye materials and specific details about processing, including plant oddities such as eucalyptus and St. John’s wort, different effects froma range of techniques (for instance, hapa-zome, or beating color into cloth, as well as the familiar resist )and mordants (the stuff that fixes or makes color permanent). Urban apartment dwellers might be a bit challenged by the philosophy and processes; and a few materials indigenous to Australia are unavailable to those on other continents. Nonetheless, an excellent source. --Barbara Jacobs

Edition details

• Publisher: INTERART
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1741960797
• ISBN 13: 9781741960792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240