Calgary Public Library Sharpie Marker Dyeing Project

This past Saturday was the last of 7 sessions for the Calgary Public Library using Sharpie Markers™ and rubbing alcohol to create a lot of interesting patterns. Our original project, a cotton scarf, often morphed into just having a lot of fun making marks on the 100% cotton fabric and adding 99% alcohol with an eye dropper to see how the Sharpie pigments moved. 

Let me tell you about our 2 main supplies – we did use Sharpie™ Markers for this project, but any alcohol based marker will work. Bic Markit™, Copic™ and Spectrum Noir™ are others that you can use. Sharpies™ and the Bic Markit™ alcohol markers can often be found on sale at Staples here in Canada.

The second ingredient is rubbing alcohol, and if you read our post in June of this year you may remember that rubbing alcohol comes in three main strengths, 70%, 90% and 99%. We used the 99% for this project and used an eye dropper to drop it onto the marker ink. Rubbing alcohol (perhaps due to its therapeutic use) also has an expiry date, so it’s probably wise to buy a fresh bottle for this project. Costco here in Canada has the best price and does sell the 99%, where many pharmacies do not.

The rubbing alcohol pushes the marker pigment concentrically away from the drop location so you can experiment with where you are making your alcohol drops for different effects. If you want to repeat a motif, it’s not a bad idea to do a sample piece with your motif before and after dropping the alcohol so that you remember how you made it.

Other supplies needed are 100% cotton, an eye dropper, a table covering and a good supply of fresh air!

We also did this project at our June FOG group on silk scarves, so visit that posting if you want to know more about doing this process on silk.

Although many finished a scarf during the session, we only had the pleasure of seeing one of our participants wearing her creation as she brought the finished piece to another session. As you can see from the photo below, she folded the 54” piece of cotton in half lengthwise, sewed around it, right sides together and then turned it right side out. She then did a beaded fringe on one end only and lovely beading up the seam side. Folding it gave it a nice feel and the beaded fringe some nice weight.

Carleen's finished Scarf with beaded fringe

What follows are some awesome examples of motifs that our participants came up with.

In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,

after the alcohol was dropped is on the right

In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,

after the alcohol was dropped is on the right. In the bottom example,

the drawing was enhanced with black marker lines after the alcohol was dropped.

In each pair, the motif before the alcohol was dropped is on the left,

after the alcohol was dropped is on the right.

Other uses for the decorated cotton could be quilt blocks or small fringed pieces for the fronts of cards.

Joan's southwest sunset.

Once all the decoration is completed, let your cotton dry thoroughly overnight and then heat set with your iron set on the cotton setting. Once heat set, they are washable and the colours will not run.

FOG Tuesday - On Your “Marker”, Get Set and Colour!

For the final FOG Tuesday, before we resume in September, we experimented with dyeing on silk with Sharpie™ Markers and rubbing alcohol.  The silk scarves were purchased from Dharma Trading and are a nice quality scarf with hand rolled hems, though apparently those will soon be long gone replaced with machine sewn hems.

I digress – it started out as a Sharpie™ marker event, but the Bic Mark It® markers were on sale at Staples for $5 per pack of 12, so several tried those along with Copic™ Markers, Prismacolor™ Markers and several more that I can’t remember. Each had its own properties that seemed to work better for different effects. Some colours seemed to work more effectively with some brands and some markers like the Copic™ have a wider range of colours. Broad tip, medium tip and fine tip markers each had their uses on the projects. However, the most important similarity was that they are all alcohol based markers.

Now the rubbing alcohol. Who knew that rubbing alcohol had an expiry date? Hands up. I certainly did not. Rubbing alcohol comes in a variety of strengths depending on the manufacturer – 70%, 90% and 99%. The higher concentrations seemed to work better in most cases and it did seem that the fresher the rubbing alcohol the better. We used it both in spray bottles and in eye droppers for different effects.

Tim Holtz Blending Solution
on raw silk.

The Tim Holtz Blending Solution® also worked very well, but would be very expensive to use for larger pieces or for a classroom project. 

We didn’t limit our experimentation to the silk scarves, but tried all types of paper – Sumi paper, handmade papers, coffee filters;  fabric – cotton, raw silk, this strange man made polypropylene fabric I had just picked up, polyester ribbon and cotton quilt batting; ceramic tiles and some other odds and sods.

Most of the techniques we tried were direct application of the marker to the paper or fabric and the two main methods of application of the alcohol were direct spraying and a targeted drop with an eye dropper.

Rubber Stamp Impression

Dots on that strange
man made fibre.

One neat method of application was to colour a rubber stamp with the marker, spray it with alcohol and then apply to the paper/fabric. You could also get a second ghost print from the same application.

Another method was to put marker dots in a circle (one or more circles of dots) and a larger dot in the centre and then apply the alcohol to the centre dot with an eye dropper.

Once your project is dry you should heat set the silk and cotton with an iron.

Siri and her scarf,
before and after

We’re saying Good Bye to one of our FOG members. Siri has been in Calgary for a couple of years and is now returning home. Here she is with her silk scarf, before and after. We have enjoyed having her in the group and hope she stays in touch.

Top L. Detail of scarf, Top Middle and R, before and after.
Bottom L, after spraying, Middle and R. before and after.

Just a safety note, we did have good ventilation in the room we were in and were not overly bothered by the smell of the alcohol markers or alcohol, however, that may be a consideration for your experiments at home or in a large group.

Finer weave, high thread count, white cotton.

Medium weight unbleached muslin.