I chose different greens and blues for my color scheme with some orange and  brown/purple as  contrasting, warmer colors, but also because purple is the color used for mourning in our culture, I wanted to use brown to represent decay, in this case of the corals. Green and blue is used for the water and the aquamarine environment, but I didn't want to use lively colors as these would have been too joyous to me. I also tried to vary the tonal values of the colors to have the choice between darker and lighter colors.

The colors used to paint the papers are mainly Procion dyes. The idea was that I could take the same colors to dye the fabric if needed. Colors and mixed: cobalt blue, lemon yellow, midnight blue, brown. Sometimes I added fluid acrylics if needed to the mixture.

Papers used: photocopy paper and heavier multimedia paper, tissue paper. Sometimes the reverse of the photocopy paper produces even more interesting effects as shown below.

Greens/blues

Light Purple with orange

Blues/turquoise: left: discharged papers, right : papers treated with acrylic paint overpainted with fluid Procion dyes

a: Blue, discharged, overpainted with light green

b and c: a darker set of papers: above: tissue paper with rubbing and overpainting

underneath: indirect printing by drawing the shapes on a piece of paper with the the underside painted with waxed crayon

d, e, f:Rubbing and stamping on cartridge paper, overpainted with fluid dyes

The reverse of these stamped lightweight papers might even be more interesting

g: Rubbing of tissue paper over netting then glued on painted background with tissue partially overlapping

h: Painted paper with little circles drawn with wax crayon

i: pleated paper with wax crayon and overpainting with fluid Procion dyes

j: crumpled paper rubbed with wax crayon overpainted with fluid Procion dyes

k: painted background and stamped with selfmade foam stamp with acrylic paint

l: stamped with acrylic paint, floaded with Procion dyes, sprinkled with salt to produce additional background marks

m: overprinted cartridge paper

n:  crumpled pieces of paper painted with a wax crayon in orange 

o: rubbing over fern leaves, overpainted

b

c

p: one of my favourites. here I painted the pattern on a piece of silk screen with glue to act as a resist. The screen was stretched into an embroidery hoop and the pattern was reproduced on the paper with acrylic paint before being overpainted with Procion dyes

The reverse of "p". this is what happens if you paint onto light photocopy paper. I might even prefer the reverse

d and f and their reverse

e

q: discharged Procio dyes

Reverse of "q"

r: printed paper with Procion wash

last two papers: painted crumpled tissue paper, this became very delicate when wetted