Tag: Eco Dyeing

I’m an exhibitionist !

Published on by FJB7 Comments

I’m very lucky to live in Bellingen.  Amongst its many attractive aspects, is the enthusiastic nurturing of artistic endeavour.  Nobody looks down on your amateurish attempts to produce something that might qualify as “art”.  Even the real artists offer words of encouragement.

Years ago a work colleague commented that she thought I didn’t have a left-brain, and whilst I accept that I am very focused on process and organisation, I thought that was somewhat harsh!

Over the years I’ve tried a few things – painting, sketching, pottery, etc and not discovered anything that grabbed me until I attended an Eco Dyeing course at Camp Creative a few years ago.  I still remember the puzzled looks I got when I told friends that I was doing the course.  “No, I’m not going to crochet my own hemp shroud – that’s dyeing not dieing”.

Paper hoarding

Anyway, I was hooked from the first day, and I’ve been experimenting and hoarding eco-printed paper ever since.  The hoarding was becoming a problem until the lovely Cynthia offered me space in her private gallery, and a joint opening with Leonie another budding artist.  The opening was a huge success – wine, delicious food, great conversation and best of all … SALES!

Cynthia’s Gallery
Some of the guests
My display
My opening invitation
About my work

I was quite hesitant about exhibiting, but I discovered that framing makes all the difference to an eco-print.  Turning it from a scrap of paper to something that you might just want to hang on your wall …

Eucalyptus & iron
Lilly Pilly with Cochineal
Geranium with Cochineal
Lilly Pilly & cabbage
Windfall Eucalypt leaves
Waratah & Tree Fern

So thanks to Cynthia, Leonie and all the friends and acquaintances who attended the opening, and a special thanks to those who bought our artwork.

I’ll be eco-printing more paper soon, but I’m trying to be patient.  I made the decision to use only plants from my garden, and preferably Australian natives, but I fell in love with Cotinus (Smoke Bush) leaf prints, so I’ve been forced to plant one. I’m trying to leave it alone and not strip off all the leaves like I did last autumn

Cotinus leaves
Cotinus imprint

Hopelessly addicted to cabbage …

Published on by FJB12 Comments

Our local fruit and veg barn couldn’t believe how much cabbage I was buying.
“Wow – you really love your cabbage don’t you!” they said.  So, I tried to explain.
Which probably made the situation worse.  I’m sure they now think I’m some sort of obsessed fibre munching, cauldron boiling witch 😊

I will admit that over the last few weeks, things got just a little bit out of control.  I became rather hooked on the purple cabbage eco-print process. Almost every morning I ventured out into the garden to gather plant matter to be layered between papers of various weight and texture – tracing paper, swing tags, serviettes … anything I could lay my hands on really.

Into the pot with purple cabbage and mordant to simmer for forty minutes, and then the impatient wait overnight for the dawn (well, almost dawn) unbundling.

I experimented with alum and copper mordants. Copper seems to result in a clear pale blue background with some shades of pink …

Whereas Alum gives a darker, smoky greyish blue …

I’ve amassed quite a pile of dyed papers, and thrown more than a few on the compost heap.


I’ve framed several of the better papers …

And I’ve made this year’s Christmas cards …


I’m putting together an artist’s notebook which I’ll bind, when I’ve refreshed my memory on the Coptic binding method.

If you’d like to read my relatively foolproof method, Purple Cabbage eco-print recipe

Purple Cabbage, an eco-print recipe

Published on by FJB1 Comment

 

I am in no way an expert on the eco-print process, but over the last few weeks I have worked out a relatively fail-safe method of printing plant images on to paper using purple (red) cabbage. Keep in mind that you will never get the same result twice – it’s just the way with nature – so expect the unexpected …

If you’d like to see some of the results I’ve achieved using this method, Hopelessly addicted to cabbage.

Layering plant matter
Bundle ready to be tied

Preparation …

Gather up a bucket of foliage, leaves and flowers of different textures, shapes and colours.  Avoid large soft leaves as they can turn to mush when they are simmered – geranium leaves are an exception.  Gather more than you think you need.

Some of the leaves and flowers that I used were – lilly pilly, geranium, tree fern fronds, red camellia, tulipwood, lemon myrtle, salvia, grevillea, bamboo and eucalyptus.

Make up a spray bottle of vinegar spritz – I used approximately 70% water/30% cheap white vinegar.

Gather up your paper – try 80/110/180 gsm paper or swing tags or whatever.

The Process …

Start layering your paper and plant matter.  Spritz the paper, then lay down the plant matter and spritz again.  Use plenty of plant matter because some will leave colour, some will interact with each other, some will just leave an outline and others will do absolutely nothing.  Keep layering until you have a thick but manageable bundle.

I use a piece of ordinary 80gsm computer paper for the first and last layers of the bundle – this protects the paper from excess colour.

Use bulldog clips or string to secure your bundle so that the paper and plant layers are pressed firmly together.

Put the bundle in your container of water and bring slowly to a simmer – NOT a boil.  Then simmer for 20 minutes.

Then for a small container, add approximately half a small purple cabbage, chopped into smallish chunks, and ½ a tsp of either alum or copper.

Simmer DO NOT BOIL for 20 minutes and then TURN OFF THE HEAT.  This is really important because if you continue to simmer the cabbage it can “de-nature” which will turn the dye brown and give your paper a muddy look.

Now the Hard Bit …

Step away from the pot and don’t open the bundles until the following day.

The Next Day … (or longer)

Remove your bundles from the pot and stand them in the sink for about half an hour to drain.  Then untie your bundle and carefully peel away the layers, watching out for plants that give a particularly nice outline or colour.  Then leave them to dry on a towel – I don’t wash my papers.

The Day After that …

Do it all again😊

The cabbage experiment …

Published on by FJB6 Comments

For the last week, my house has smelt like a sauerkraut factory. In fact, unless you are partial to the smell of boiled cabbage, the word you would probably use would be stink rather than smell.  The aroma of stale boiled cabbage is NOT nice.

What was supposed to be a quick eco-dyeing experiment with Purple Cabbage, iron and eucalyptus leaves, turned into a week long obsession quite by accident. On discovering that I had run out of plain cotton fabric to insert between the layers of fabric and leaves, I decided to improvise by inserting sheets of ordinary copy paper before wrapping it around bamboo and simmering it in a pot of cabbage water and iron.

I expected that the paper would be a soggy mess destined for the compost pile, but no, there were some really lovely outlines of leaves on a soft aqua background …

Dry Eucalypt on 80gsm 2
Dry Eucalypt on 80gsm

So then of course I was hooked. I had to continue, with different weights of paper – 80gsm, 110gsm and 250gsm, and fresh leaves, dried leaves and leaves soaked in iron water. Endless possibilities.

Fresh E. citriodora
Dry unknown Eucalypt
Dry unknown Eucalypt
Dry leaf detail
Dry E. citriodora

At the same time, and in the same pot, I was trying fresh and dry Eucalyptus citriodora leaves on linen …

Fresh E. citriodora
Dry E. citriodora

And some unidentified dry eucalyptus leaves on Raw Silk

Every morning I bounded out of bed to see what unbundling suprises awaited me. But eventually, I had to stop, clear everything away, and simmer some citriodora leaves for a few hours to get rid of the stale cabbage aroma.  I’ll be at it again as soon as I’ve caught up with my garden jobs.

I just couldn’t stop!
The dining table mess