After the journey of running through the woods I was ready to do some more breaking down in the studio. It was really helpful having a good start and a few key areas to focus for the most impact. I did some experimenting with a few more common breaking down tools on the trouser fabric but had only so-so results. I tried oil, coffee, tea, hair spray, spray butter, nail-polish remover, and some cheese grating. In some cases these techniques left no real affect on the fabric, they kind of disappeared when they dried. I was expecting a lot from the cheese grater however it took off the first layer in large amounts of fluff but didn't create a result that looked like it had happened over time. I knew I would need to do something a bit different to get the best results. What my teacher had suggested was to try and get a general feeling of mud and dirt; not just big clumps. To get an even spread I should use an airbrush filled with dye to get the right affect. With some help from the technicians I got a little airbrush and mixed up my dyes. I mixed up three colours, a dark almost black brown, a lighter mid-tone brown and a kind of light savanna type brown. I tried each colour on both my trouser fabric and my puttee fabric. I was absolutely thrilled with the results.
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| First results with the Airbrush and dye |
Using the airbrush really gave the fabric a nice tonal difference and variation. This was successful when considering maybe the Soldier had tried to wash his trousers a little or at least tried to keep them as clean as possible, but time just kind of wore them down. It's especially noticeable on the puttee fabric. I was worried it was going on a little too dark but by just dabbing it with a cloth of the same fabric or rubbing the piece together it spread the dye around and fixed it more into the fibers so it didn't look too heavy in any one place. I took my samples to show Rose and my tutor and they both liked the effect but we decided to get rid of the lightest more red brown because it stood out a little too much. When I got back to the dye room I added some more green to the lighter brown and made it more of a deep/gray green which I used as a base for my puttees.
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| Trousers Front |
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| Trouser Back |
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| Knee Close Up |
This was a very fun process. I was able to put the trousers on a pair of legs in the studio and that was very helpful to have them to work on. I mostly focused on the knee area and the back (bottom area). I also did a little bit of work around the top of the trousers, the button stand where it closes, and the pockets on the side. I felt like along with the knees and bum these areas would also get dirty just from everyday wear and tare. I did rotate my colours and did use a cloth to go back in and work the dye into the fibers. I think this technique worked really well. For the puttees I just did a spray with each colour to build up the dye. The lightest layer was the green, then a little more heavy was the medium brown, and the heaviest and the darkest was the last dark brown. Instead of using a separate piece of cloth I would spray the dye and then just rub together a different part of the puttee together with the part that had the dye on it. This seemed to work efficiently because it spread the colour and worked it in at the same time without needing a second piece of fabric.
Evaluation: Working on breaking down has been a positive learning experience for me. I learned a new technique (airbrushing) that I really enjoy doing and that is very useful. Airbrushing produces a different type of breaking down but I can also see it being useful for many different types of textile manipulation and am interested in experimenting with it more in the future. Again having the base of real mud to work on is very very useful and I feel more confident in what I am doing because I am keeping the continuity from yesterday. I will be interested to see what Rose says tomorrow and then to see how they look in the dress parade and under the stage lights.
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