How I Came To The Point Of Creating My Ice Dyes

This is a rerun of a post I wrote a few years ago. I get so many requests to teach this and questions on how I do this. I hope this explains how I got to the point I am at.

I have been christened “The Queen Of Ice” as my work is the best ice dyeing out there.

These are 3 of my experiments on the journey to create the BEST. I consider the above so-so but it takes a lot of these to achieve the best.
Thanks you to everyone for all your comments about a recent piece which I consider the BEST of the best Florida Ice.
This never could have happened without a lifetime of learning involving fabrics and color.
Many have asked how I do this and it is not something I can share.
For one thing, the results are serendipitous.
And the other thing is unless you have lived the same life I have for 77 years you will never achieve these results. It is all the experiences, education, and my research and development that have directly or indirectly made what I am currently creating happen.
I am no longer teaching, but am pursuing my own art.
To attempt to share this would not be fair to myself, nor to people who would try it and not get the results I do.
When I was doing one on one teaching for a fee I had a student ask if she could come and learn everything I knew about color from me in a one day session as she would have to travel a distance to get to my studio. It would not have been possible as she had not lived my life. I could have taught her about color theory but even if I did that until she did exercises,etc she still would not have learned what I attempted to teach her.
I can only suggest you take as many color and design classes as possible from the very best instructors and do the work from the classes.
Don’t concentrate only on working with dyes, but with paints, fabrics. yarns,interior decorating, food and papers.
Then play with your chosen materials until you get results that please you.
Devote every waking moment to your art as only then will you achieve your potential. You can multitask and think about your art being influenced as you live your daily life and think about what you want to do and how you will start.
You are all welcome to follow me on my BLOG and sign up to the email list on the page which will notify you each time I post to the blog.  In addition to my art I share parts of my life on my blog. Although I try to post as often as possible, sometimes a week or more may go by with no posts as I have nothing to post. The blog address is: http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/
And in closing I am going to share some not so successful things I’ve dyed recently so you don’t thing I get a winner ever time.



The above are some less than lovelies but it takes creating a lot of these to find my direction to make the BEST!
Even the less than lovelies are useful for backs of quilts or they can be cut up and used in piecing. So all is not lost no matter what happens in my work.
I wish you success on your art journey wherever it takes you.
Be willing to play and accept the fact that you most likely will have to create 100-200 pieces to get some really good ones.