Overdyeing and Soy Wax

Sunday's weather was dreary. Half the family was under the weather, down with colds.
I did my best to shrug off their impact and isolated myself in the wet studio.

I've had a box of soy wax on the shelf for a couple of years. Never got around to using it before.
I decided it might work with my stamps, so I opened the package.
It heats up easily in the microwave oven.
The soy wax did not work well with the stamps, however.
It set up before I got get it applied to the fabric.
Instead, I just made some drips and marks using a paintbrush.

This piece was just spattered with the soy wax before dyeing in multi colors.

It made for a pretty good February color fix.

Here is the entire piece. It is about a 36 x 60" Yummy.

Detail of the one I did with charcoal gray.

Here is a picture of half the charcoal piece.

Below is the one I dyed with Bronze dye.
I was not set up for dye painting so did low water immersion dyeing, which caused some cracks in the wax, with the dye penetrating those cracks. Makes for an interesting appearance.I will have to try the soy wax with thickened dye and the rainbow painting process this spring or summer when the weather warms up and I am able to set up in the shop.

I did a long series of gradation dyeing last summer and did three groups of different reds. This resulted in a lot of pink fabrics that I will most likely never use. I overdyed a handful of those pieces. I can't say that I have ever made a pink quilt, but these are colors in my palate. Overdyed with lemon yellow, cobalt blue, bronze, and scarlet to get these luscious colors. They really glow.