Ad-hoc dying of feathers?

[iamasmith]

I was wondering if anybody has any good experience of this and can offer advice.

I want to try something out for one of my patterns and want to use Green dyed Teal since Teal is the most compliant feather that I can find for my purposes and the mottled pattern works quite well.

Nobody seems to have any Green Dyed Teal and I wanted to do something ad-hoc so I got hold of a green Sharpie and stroked a feather with rather pleasing results.

I put the treated feather onto some wet blotting paper for an hour and there was no leaching of the colour at all but the feather doesn't behave quite as an untreated feather does. With Teal if you stroke the barbs back as in a wonder wing they still mate so the micro barbs seem intact... not quite the same behaviour with the self coloured feather. There was some fusing of the barbs doing it this way too so I think the solvent in the pen has melted the micro barbs.

I don't really want to get hold of the Veniard's dye and do a full batch, I just want to do an ad-hoc feather or two for experimentation. Anybody have any good suggestions?

I'll still try the feathers out with the Wally Wing that I am looking to use and let you know the result but in the meantime was wondering if anybody had any good advice?

Cheers,

-Andy

[flyinghigh]

Pantone pens work I think if youve got them.

[iamasmith]

Originally Posted by flyinghigh

Pantone pens work I think if youve got them.

Hmm, worth a try. I could pop into London Graphics and get one. I've only ever used a brown pen before to touch body materials though and was wondering about the effect on the feather micro barbs though.

[iamasmith]

..and 1 more hour on the blotting paper and there is some slight colouration from the Sharpie treated feather. It still may be OK for prototyping though, I'll have to see.