Snow Dyeing with Acrylic Paint

A couple of weeks ago, we had some snow here in the UK. As usual, the whole country ground to a halt, but it ended up being a great excuse to try out snow dyeing for the first time. I’d never done it before, but my mum (who is a dyer) wanted to try it out, so I decided to join her and give it a go, whilst putting my own spin on it.

I decided instead of using dye, I would use fluid acrylic paint and Jacquard Lumiere metallic paint, and try it out on paper as well as fabric.

The whole process just ended up being one long play session, experimenting with what I could do and what effects it would create. I have tried to write out instructions on what we did as best as I can, in case you’d like to give it a go yourself.

The two methods for fabric and paper are very similar in a number of steps, but in the case of fabric, the melted snow water can pass through it, where as with paper it can’t.

On Fabric

1. Dampen the fabric under the tap to wet it through
2. Put fabric in the bottom of a container and scrunch it up
3. Put a metal rack over the container, so that it doesn’t cover the fabric underneath, and put more scrunched up fabric on the rack
4. Cover this fabric on the top with snow
5. Add fluid acrylics (or watered down acrylic paint) or similar
6. Leave for the snow to melt
7. Take it out of the container and hang it to allow it to dry

On Paper

1. Use thick watercolour paper and dampen the paper under the tap to wet it through
2. Put it in a container so it lies flat
3. Cover with snow
4. Add your fluid acrylics (or watered down acrylic paint) or similar
5. Wait for the snow to melt
6. Take it out of the container and lie it flat to allow it to dry

I initially put my four pieces of paper in one large container but realised, quite quickly, that as the snow melted, the colours would start running together, so I separated them into their own containers. I left one of the pieces of paper in the original container and added another larger piece of paper in with it, to soak up the already melted snow and paint mix.

When the snow had melted, I took the paper out of the containers and added scrunched up pieces of fabric into the remaining watered-down acrylic. In the long tray, I added more paper and even some handmade paper to absorb the leftover paint. Even after all of this, there was still some leftover watered-down acrylic, which I poured into pots to paint with later!

  

 

As you can see, this whole process produced a lot of fabric and paper and more paint to use in future projects, so was very successful! I love the effects of the snow dyeing on fabric and paper and I now have to figure out a way to use all the lovely piece I have. I think that at least a couple of the smaller paper pieces work as they are, so I’ll hopefully get them mounted and framed soon, but I think the other ones need some work. I think I’ll try and incorporate the rest of the paper into collage, although I like the idea of making the long pieces into accordion fold books. I never really know what to do with fabric when I make it, so my ideas are either to make fabric covered books or hold onto them for a future textile project. However, I’m also wondering if I can use them as a raw canvas to paint on, but the fabric is quite a lightweight cotton, so I might need to do some experimenting before I commit to that idea.