Ecoprinting throughout the year – December

I can’t believe I have been sharing my ecoprinting experiments with you each month for a year now.

Today I’m trying out ways of getting leaf prints when there’s not much fresh foliage around. I have some dried leaves and onion skins, frozen and fresh cotinus to compare, and some fresh leaves which can still be found in my garden.

If you want to see my ecoprinting posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

December.

Pot – New roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – watercolour paper.

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, fresh, dried and frozen cotinus, dried fern, onion skins, and fresh eucalyptus and geranium leaves.

Cooking time – 40minutes, turned, 40 minutes.

Blanket -Procion dye blanket used with fern.

Images

Conclusion – Cotinus prints from dried and frozen leaves have some blue from their undersides but the fresh leaves have no blue. Onion skins give good colour and some interesting effects. The geranium leaf and eucalyptus printed quite well but not as strong a print as other times in the year.

I can’t believe my year long eco printing project has come to an end. I will be continuing to eco print as I find the process fascinating and I will keep you informed if I get any great results.

I hope you have enjoyed my eco printing journey, I will make a page with links to all the ‘Ecoprinting throughout the year’ posts, you will see a link at the top of the screen or just use the search box on the right.

I have a bonus post coming soon.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – November

Today I’m trying out some different papers that I’ve not tried before, a dye blanket and Inktense blocks.

If you want to see my ecoprinting posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

November.

Pot – New roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with rust water and vinegar.

Paper – Watercolour, coloured pastel paper, card, daphne / lotka paper.

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium,fern, tagetee, cotinus.

Cooking time – 45 minutes, turned, 45 minutes.

Blanket -the geranium had a logwood blanket made using kitchen towel .

Images

Conclusion – Good orange yellow from tagetee. The fern leaf had Inktense crayon rubbed over the damp leaf picking up the veins, this worked quite well. The kitchen towel blanket left a texture on the eco print. Daphne paper seems to have darker prints and the paper is wrinkled a bit. Notice the colour of the tagetee print is olive green on this paper but it was orange on the other papers.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – October

If you want to see my ecoprinting posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

October.

Pot – Rusty roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – Watercolour and cartridge paper.

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, dogwood, spleenwort, cotinus, tagetee.

Cooking time – 45 minutes, turned, 45 minutes.

Blanket -none.

Images

Conclusion – Good veins in the dogwood prints, cotinus didn’t have any blue, golden yellow geranium leaf, tagetee looks interesting, I like the shape and colour of the leaves.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – September

September.

I haven’t had much time to eco print just now but I have a few samples to show you, these are on Tex craft paper, which can be sewn. A lighter coloured paper would have been better. Also one side of the paper seemed to print better than the other side.

The next example shows blackberry leaves, just look at the vein detail in this print.

The final print was made with rose leaves and procion dye blanket, I love the colours in this print and the textures in the background. Rose leaves always give great prints.

You can learn more about eco printing in my past posts, type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

Not Eco Printing, It’s Cyanotypes!

While the sun was out I finally got round to doing more cyanotypes. I missed out last time it was sunny as I couldn’t find the cyanotype chemicals which I had put away somewhere in the studio.

When the next sunny spell happened I was determined to do some sun printing so I had a good rummage and found the chemicals eventually.

There’s lots of information on how to make a cyanotype prints on the internet but basically you mix two chemicals together, paint it on your substrate , lay plants (or whatever) on top with a piece of glass on top to ensure good contact, then leave it in the sun to develop the print.

I started with a couple of prints on paper.

Then I added some turmeric and washing up liquid bubbles to see how this affected my prints.

Next I decided to print on fabric, this one is on silk which was mordanted first with alum.

My favourite prints are on recycled cotton sheets and pillow cases. I hope to use some of these for textile art in the winter when I can sit in front of the log burner and stitch.

I also I tried combining eco printing with cyanotype technique, the results were interesting but I will show you those in another post.

Eco printing throughout the year – August

Today I’m comparing prints from my rusty roasting tin with prints made in a new roasting tin.

If you want to see my eco printing posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

August.

Pot – Boil 1 – Rusty roasting tin, boil 2 – new roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – watercolour and cartridge papers

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, coeopsis, eucalyptus, fern, cotinus.

Cooking time – 45 minutes, turned, 45 minutes.

Blanket -none.

Images

Boil 1. – Images are dark due to the pan being very rusty.

Boil 2. – Images are lighter as the only iron present was the liquid used to dip the flowers and foliage.

Comparison.

Left print rusty pan, right print new pan.

Conclusion – Prints using the rusty roasting tin are much darker than the ones in the new roasting tin. Also I think the tiles that I use are so impregnated with iron they are making the prints darker. I need to use new tiles for very light prints. I like the stronger tonal values, the cotinus leaves came out out very dark and the eucalyptus printed well, you can even see the stoma on the leaf prints.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – July

July.

Pot – Rusty roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – cartridge, watercolour, mixed media paper

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, coreopsis, corn marigold, crocosmia, clematis, tagetees, cotinus, rose leaves.

Cooking time – 45 minutes, turned, 45 minutes.

Blanket – none.

Images

Conclusion – .

Coreopsis gave a good orange/ rust print. The purple clematis was disappointing, as were corn marigold and crocosmia lucifer which only gave a ghost print. The tagetee leaves printed well.

One of the papers ( top photo, middle bottom) looked as though the papers hadn’t been stacked properly, but I know they were. So I believe this was caused when soaking the papers in the bath of mordant where they don’t sit directly on top of each other.

I also made some prints using dye blankets, I will tell you about this process in my next post but here’s some of the prints I made using a dye blanket.

If you want to see more ecoprinting posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – June

Today I’m trying out some different papers that I’ve not tried before.

If you want to see my ecoprinting posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

June.

Pot – Rusty roasting tin.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – Khadi paper, yupo paper, wet strength tissue paper, Tex Kraft paper fabric

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, red elderberry, herb robert, acer, cotinus, rose leaves.

Cooking time – 45 minutes, turned, 45 minutes.

Blanket -none.

Images

Khadi paper

Yupo paper

Wet strength tissue paper

Tex Kraft paper.

Conclusion – Prints on khadi paper are what I expected as it’s a watercolour paper but it’s not as strong as other watercolour papers that I’ve tried so needs to be used with care.

Yupo is a plastic paper, I wasn’t sure if this paper would accept a print at all. The prints are quite subtle but I might just need that in a project sometime.

Wet strength tissue is used to make carnival costumes, it’s lightweight but strong, it held up well considering how thin it is and the prints are good. I will use this ecoprinted paper for collage work, it will be good for layering.

Tex Kraft paper fabric, this is a new paper for me, I found it on Amazon, it can be used to make items such as bags and book covers. The prints are dull but this paper was brown /beige, I couldn’t find a lighter coloured one. The paper itself held up well to the ecoprinting process.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – May

This post is about different pots and how new versus used equipment gives different results, as well as continuing my ecoprinting throughout the year theme.

If you want to see the posts for the rest of the year type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box.

May.

Pot – Rusty roasting tin, and also a new roasting tin. Also new tile supports as well as used tiles.

Water – Tap water with vinegar.

Paper – Cartridge paper, mixed media paper, watercolour paper.

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants – Cranesbill geranium, red elderberry, herb robert, cow parsley, red ligularia, astilbe, beech and rowan leaves.

Cooking time – 40 minutes, turned, 40 minutes.

Blanket -none.

Images

This bundle was left overnight before going in the rusty pot. I don’t think it has made any difference to the prints.

Plants from the rusty roasting pan

The print below was cooked in the new roasting pan.

Plants from the new roasting pan

Below is a comparison of prints, on the left is the old rusty pan, on the right the new pan was used.

A comparison of the rusty pan on the left and the new pan on the right. The new pan print is much brighter but less tonal contrast than the one done in the old rusty pan.

This ligularia leaf is a good example of how some leaves give different prints from each side of the leaf.

A great example of how some leaves print differently depending on which side is in contact with the paper.

Conclusion – The plants in the rusty roasting tin are less vibrant in colour than the ones with new tile supports, cooked in the new roasting tin. The prints done in the rusty pan have more tonal contrast due to the iron in the pot. The ligularia leaf prints show how sometimes each side of the leaf prints differently.

My next post will give step by step instructions for ecoprinting on paper, I hope you will try it for yourself. You need some rusty water so if you haven’t started yours off I suggest you do so now, you can read about making it here. Adding some fine grade wire wool and vinegar will speed up the process.

Ecoprinting throughout the year – February

February has come around quickly, it’s time for another post about my ecoprinting / botanical printing journey throughout the year. During my journey I will share photos of my prints to see what works best at what time of year, and more.

If you want to see the rest of these “year posts” type “Ecoprinting throughout the year” into the search box. There will be other posts comparing plants for example, and a beginners step by step guide to printing on paper my way.

February.

Pot – Rusty roasting tin

Water – Tap with vinegar, I used the boiling water from the day before topped up.

Paper – Windsor & Newton cartridge paper

Mordant – alum acetate

Leaf dip – rust water

Plants -hellebore, cranesbill, aconite, herb Robert, daffodil, snowdrop, dried leaves.

Cooking time – 40 minutes, turned, 40 minutes.

Blanket -fabric dipped in iron water and rung out. Used on the snowdrops and dried sycamore leaf. (More about blankets later).

Observations – The wine coloured hellebores printed blue grey the prints are ok but some of the plant material damaged the paper as they are bulky flowers.

The daffodil printed better than I expected.

The dried leaves soaked in iron water printed well especially the sycamore leaf.

Snowdrops didn’t impart much colour (as expected) however ghost prints were achieved by using the iron blanket and the reused rusty water in the roasting tin helped in making darker prints.

Herb Robert printed black, probably because there was a lot of iron present in the pot.

The cranesbill didn’t print as well as expected. Maybe this was because the bulky flowers of the helebores prevented the cranesbill leaves having good contact with the paper.

The aconite leaves printed but the flower didn’t leave any colour at all.

Images

Conclusion – Bulky plant material like hellebores would probably be better with a thick fabric blanket between the papers acting like a cushion which gives better contact with the paper and less damage. Good contact with the paper is essential for detailed prints.