I was given the task of creating lip and tongue colors from my teacher. I cannot move forward on my portrait project without them.
I have a skin formula that I use for light skin tone, but I am creating lips on my portrait rug that is being hooked in all yellow values. So, I will try to achieve the same value as it appears in the photo sample and at the same time, I will try to achieve a pink taupe color or as my teacher called it, tongue color.
This is uncharted territory for me as I have never needed tongue color or a lip color derived from a yellow swatch that doesn't look sick.
A WARNING about dyeing with and using hot water and chemicals. Read all of the MSD information sheets that come with the dyes. Find this information also on the Pro Chemical website. Always wear eye protection, skin protection, and use heat resistant gloves when handling hot water, jars, or pots. Be sensitive of children and pets. Do not use dyes around them and do not let dyes sit unattended.
I chose a formula out of Anne-Marie Littenberg's book Hooked Rug Portraits as this book has quite a few colors of flesh tones and great instructions.
The color called Mary Magdalene has brown-pink overtones on natural wool. Picking this I chose to dye over pink, mauve, lavender, natural, and white. It is enjoyable to see how color bases affect the end result and how they are all 'married' to each other but still possess personal characteristics.
I also chose to create my own flesh color to overdye on the same bases.
Third, seeing how the first two colors were coming out, I needed to be rescued! So, I combined some of each of the first 2 recipes in a 1:2 ratio.
The results are stunning. There are pinky swatches, apricot swatches, green and light brown swatches and plum ones. These will be able to be used in portraiture of humans and animals and probably a lot of other things.
The formulas are listed here for anyone who wants to have 'fun in the lab' as I always call it.
Anne-Marie Littenberg formula for Mary Magdalene as seen in her book Hooked Rug Portraits:
ProChem Wash Fast Acid Dyes
Chocolate Brown #502 1/128t
Chestnut #560 1/128t
Caramel #130 1/128
I made up a 50mL amount. It is very dark.
Using 20 mL of the dye in a jar, I added swatches to equal a 9"x12" piece. Process normally for jar dyeing adding citric acid after 15 minutes of heating.
My Skin Formula:
ProChem Wash Fast Acid
Caramel #130 1/64t
Purple #813 scant toothpick tip
Make up dye in 1 cup boiling water.
Use 50mL of dye solution (10 teaspoonsful) in a jar with swatches equal to 9"x12". Process normally for jar dyeing adding citric acid after 15 minutes of heating.
For the mixed dye formula, add 15mL (1T)of Mary Magdalene and 30 mL (2T) of Skin Formula to a jar, mix and add swatches equal to 9"x12". Process normally for jar dyeing adding citric acid after 15 minutes of heating.
Please note that the purple in the formula My Skin Formula is there to dull the yellow in the caramel. You can add more to get a darker, duller skin tone.
These formulas make up a literal rainbow of lip color, tongue colors, and dark and light skin tones. It makes a difference what color wool you dye over.
Try other wool colors to see what effect they give.