The details are much finer in the center than at the edges,
with much smaller drops of dye there.
Carefully drawn pencil guidelines were essential.
I used a large compass as well as a yardstick and a
protractor to draw 12 equally spaced radial lines through a
center pint, and multiple concentric circles centered upon that
point, up to about 14" (35 cm) in diameter.
I used an Eppindorf automatic pipettor (non-electronic,
mid-1980s model) to drip carefully metered droplets, from 5 to
200 microliters each, depending on the size of dye dot
desired, onto a cotton knit shirt which had previously been
soaked in a solution of 1 cup (250 ml) of soda ash in 1
gallon (4 liters) of water, then line-dried. The dyes were
Procion MX type dye, mixed at approximately 4 teaspoons (20
ml), by volume, per cup of water, along with 1 tablespoon
(15 ml) of urea per cup of water; more was used for black
and turquoise.
I did not plan in advance which colors and sizes of drops to
put where; this was a part of the process.
I dyed the background after dyeing the mandala. This was, in
my opinion, a mistake. In the future I will dye the
background first, then fill in the mandala, to avoid messing
up any of the fine details of the mandala itself.
Page created: March 23, 2003
Last updated: March 23, 2003
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