I’ve spent the past few weeks investigating eco printing, from books and on Youtube.
These are my first batch being steamed.
Some colour on the paper so I thought they looked promising.
How wrong could I be, bluebells with virtually no colour at all.
I thought steaming flat in this old wok might be better.
The string is coloured so maybe it’s worked this time.
I painted the mordant on but unfortunately you can see the brush marks, but at least there is more colour.
So I played around for a few days, using various rusty bits and solutions and finally I got a result that wowed me.
I have torn some of the papers handling them.
I have prints on both sides so I need to decide which ones I like best as I am going to put these in a triple frame , if I can find a wall to hang them on.
Also I’m having these printed as cards to put in my Etsy shop.
And so the experiments continued, each time the results differed, even using the same mordant and plant material, I found the process so gripping I cooked and dyed until I ran out of watercolour paper.
My house may smell like a pickle factory, ( or is it rotten cabbage? ), but I’m very pleased with some of my pieces, I’ll show you in another post soon.
Oh boy I love them all… I really thought the bluebells was so delicate it would look great in a journal. I’d have them any day 😊😊😊😊
They would make great journal pages, or I was thinking of stitching, printing, writing on them and if they are any good framing them up.
And what a great idea for using the old wok…. I threw mine out ages ago…. damn. But Mum came up trumps with an old enamel saucepan she used to use for boiling beetroot years ago… this could be interesting!!
Have fun Elaine
Your ‘success’ prints remind me of batik. Have you heard of Spoonflower? A couple of these would look great as yardage or ? Writing ‘tout de suite’ on my calendar to remind me to go over to your Etsy shop!!
Hi Alysen, I haven’t heard of Spoonflower but I’ve just had a look and I might just do that, thank you