In response to the feed back on my paper dying project, thought I’d share some inspiration and some of my fave ingredients if you’re interested in doing something similar.
Firstly I must introduce you to an artist I find enormously inspirational, Ruth Issett.
Ruth has authored several books of mouth-wateringly delicious adventure in color and frequently runs courses and workshops.
Take a peak at her Glorious Papers: Techniques for Applying Colour to Paper – this is one of my fave books to set ideas flowing.
Dyes
For real vibrant colors, both for fabric and paper, I use Procion dyes. These are available at some art/craft stores, or the trusty shop that sells most everything.
The dye powder needs to mixed with water, and the colors blend beautifully. If you’re using them for paper there’s no need to use any fixative, just treat them like an ink.
Inks
I also love to use Brusho inks. Again these come in powder form to be mixed with water.
If you sprinkle the dry powder (a little goes a long way) on damp paper you can get some fabulous starburst effects and color separation from the individual hues of pigments . Try it and find out!
Then there’s the Ranger Adirondack Color Wash sprays.
These can be used on fabrics too if heat set with an iron.
Ready mixed, these come in spray bottles.
Having picked up a bottle of this at my local art shop, in a fit of extravagance I got myself both full sets of 12 colors and have to say it was a great investment.
They come in dropper bottles, perfect for dripping onto paper!
The colors are vibrant and strong, so again you don’t need to use loads, and a bottle lasts a long time.
Paints
Koh-I-Noor paints are fab for several reasons.
The colors are rich and intense dye-based paints which come as 4 stackable palettes. The middle bit of each palette, along with the lid, can be used for water or mixing shades, and they are perfect if you want to take your colors out and about with you.
NB Koh-I-Noor also make stackable palette sets like this with regular watercolor – this is the one in the illustration. The ones I use are the intense dark dye based ones. Check out the comparison of colors here. Read more about playing with these here
I hope you’ve found this interesting/useful and it may have sparked some ideas for you. Til next time, happy creating, folks! 😀
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Mixy's Art Blog 
OH!! Thank you soooo much! What beautiful colour stories, you create!! Have a beautiful day!
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Thank you my friend! You have a wonderful (colorful) day too ! 😀
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Have you seen these new ones? They are the ones I’m using in my new experimental journal,
http://www.myfanwyhart.co.uk/shop-2/koh-i-noor-paints/koh-i-noor-24-palette-intense-dyeink
Delete this by all means if you don’t want the link. I’ll understand.
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Aha! these are the ones I have – since I posted I discovered there’s a different set, watercolor? These a the real deal tho – aren’t the fab! (also explains why the colors are so different)
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btw thanks for the link – I’ve updated it in the post as well, so ppl don’t go off n buy the wrong thing on my advice!!
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Hello! What a wonderful blog, I love your writing and the beautiful pictures. I’m looking forward to seeing more. Your work encouraged me to finally start working on my own sketchbook, which I bought months ago. I’m following your blog now.
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Thank you so much! So pleased to hear it’s sparked a new project for you. I started sketchbooking just a couple of years ago – now I’d feel lost without it (them… it’s addictive!)
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Yes, I have pulled out my old Dr. Ph. Martin’s dyes – stiil vibrant after all these years! Hey, and I went looking for the Gorgeous Coulors book – better hold on to yours, the used copies I could find are very expensive! I’ve ordered it from my local library… can’t wait…
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Yay, cool! It’s a funny thing about the book – I got mine from Amazon just last year, certainly wasn’t that expensive then, perhaps I was lucky and caught it before going out of print or something. Well worth hunting down a copy (for a sensible price!)
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thank you – this is really useful information =)
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How Fantastic! Thanks for sharing!!
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