Pictures from the Schweinfurth Art Center

The Schweinfurth currently has an exhibit called "Transgressing Traditions."  It is the second annual juried member international show for the SDA.  There are three pieces I thought were related to the type of work I have been doing so I am winding up my presentation with them.

First is this dress. The dress reminds me of my dresses due to the reference to life and death and the use of leftover material.

The second art work also uses old clothing as it's source material.  It is also a 3-D piece but may be harder to tell from the picture.  Think of a deep picture frame that is filled with rolled pieces of fabric and you'll have a better understanding of what you see.  The front side of the rolls are not all even which adds to the interest of the piece when seen in person.  I tried to capture that in the detail picture.

The third art work, and my favorite, is this one.  Read the artist statement.  What it not to love there?

If you have not yet been to the Schweinfurth to see the SDA show, it is on display until Augusta 21.  It is an amazing show and will certainly get your creative mojo exploding.

Bundling with Lots of Artists

Judith says:
We've talked about material, mordants, leaves, and now we are on to the cooking process.  The first step is getting the leaves and the material into the pot.  The rule is that the leaves and the material need to be in firm contact.  After that rule almost anything goes.

Colour Ecology has a very nice post with pictures and instructions for bundling.  Kathy Beckett just finished a workshop with India Flint and had to try and document her attempt.

Colour Ecology folds her between boards then clamps them.

Becca Imbur also rolls and ties.  Notice the top one that looks like it maybe has a catalpa seed pod sticking out or it might just be a stick.

Threadborne wraps hers with copper to get that blue green color.

Lynda at BloomBakeCreate has been a guest artist on the Fire blog.  She has a nice post on eco-printing and two different types of bundles. Notice she is also using a copper pipe to wrap her fabric around and then is printing on paper with her flat bundle.

I personally have used the wrap-around-a-stick-or-copper-pipe method then using twine to hold the bundle tight.  I like a thicker twine for the strength.  I made the mistake once of using yarn which stretches when it is wet.  So not a good idea.  I have also experimented with colored twine and depending on the twine it can leave a very nice mark on the fabric.  Amelia Poole recommends using dowel rods wrapped in a plastic wrap as the center of the wrapped bundle so that the wood does not alter the color of the leaves.  Personally I like the more natural approach and use some almost straight sticks from my trees cut short enough to fit in my pot.  Do be aware that my sticks will give a less predictable result than Amelia's more controlled approach.

Moving onto Plant Materials with a link to Wendy at Threadborne

Hi,
This is Judith again.  I am a day late in my posting.  I can hear Beth grinding her teeth.  I hope the post is worth waiting for the pictures.

Today I am starting off with the artist for the day because she has a great post about the subject of the day.  Wendy at Threadborne has an extensive list and pictures of flowers, plants, and berries that will eco-print well.  Here is her tutorial on eco-printing.  It is in a great deal more detailed than my explanations have been and ever will be.

I thought I would share with you some of my best leaf prints.

This is poinsettia.  You can tell the difference between the red leaves and the green (yellow print on the left).  They are printed on silk.

I love the prints of strawberry runners.  The leaves also print but I love the runners the best. These are printed on cotton.

We used to call these cigars when we were little and pretended to smoke them. They are the seed pods of the Catalpa tree. Both the pods and the leaves print fabulous.  Do notice the blue that they produce.  The  pods were dry and brown.  It was my first attempt at printing something dried and it worked wonderfully.  The material is silk.

This print is from a bush in my woods.  I have yet to identify the bush.  I think it may be a dogwood species.  It has white flowers that are blooming now and I have never noticed any berries on the bush.  If you have a guess what it could be in Maine, please let me know.  The print is on cotton.

Okay these last two are not examples of leaf prints.  This is an example of a print I did not like that I then rusted.  Isn't it delicious?  See the washer on the left?  Before I rusted the material the print was just yellow.

Lastly, this is the benefit of using vintage/antique hankies.  Is the corner lovely?  And, the edges are already finished.  That is a huge plus for me!

Other leaves that I have had great success with are: peony, echinacea, rose, lilacs, Japanese maples, and geraniums.

I'll be back on Friday talking about bundling the leaves and material.

Coloring the prints and Kit Eastman

Hi, this is Judith!

Isn't Janine great?  I learned so much from her post.  She has so much more experience with different mordants than I have.  Cris Winters had asked for lots of mordant information and thankfully Janine was able to help with that.  Janine also talked about Amelia Poole. We are very lucky to have her in Maine. She often does workshop and Janine has attended two.  I see Amelia at least yearly at craft fairs.  Her paper and fabric prints are among the best that I have seen.  I really love her because gets a really good print rather than fabric with a blurry shape and great coloration.  I prefer the print since I am a printer and Janine prefers the fabulous colorations.  Isn't it nice to be the same (we both like eco-prints) and different (we call different effects "success")?

Before I start, I apologize for the horrible pictures.  I'll try again with natural light and replace these if the pictures are better.

I wanted to tell you about my experiment with iron.   I always use iron in my boiling pot and believe it gives a darker print. Above are the iron pieces I generally use. Sorry the picture is horrible. I believe they are old spark plug tools.

Kinda by accident I tried using some iron after the boiling.  I tried eco-printing fabric with the results of lovely soft browns and only a few very light prints. Can you even see the prints? Two leaves are there but you have to work to see them.

 I decided to do some rusting on top of them. After letting the fabric sit for a couple of weeks and ironing it in an attempt to set the eco-prints I had I sat the fabric in vinegar and weighted it down with washers.  Lo and behold after just a few hours here is the result I got--the color of the fabric changed and the print was significantly more distinct.  There are so much better in person and in focus.

Speaking of the lovely soft brown I got on the fabrics, they were different than my normal results and I think I know how I got it.  I have a long strip of birch bark that I thought might be useful for something.  When I was boiling the fabric I added the birch bark.  I wondered if since the leaves print well the bark would change the color of the prints.  If nothing happened, I thought that at least I would soften the bark and be able to shape it.  The results after boiling was the soft browns.  I don't know that the birch bark made the difference since I have not repeated the experiment but I thought I would mention it.

I have also tried using other materials to color the prints.  Copper  is supposed to increase the green/blue of the prints.  I have used a copper  pipe both in the boiling pot and as a rod to wrap my fabric/leaves bundle around.  I personally have not noticed a significant difference in color.  I have also added avocado pits and peels to the boiling water. That is supposed to make the prints more yellow-green.  Again, I could not really tell a difference. I am not saying it doesn't work--lots of other people have had success with it--but so far I have not.  Could be I am looking for huge differences rather than a subtle change.  Could also be since I always use iron the color from the iron is more dominant.

Artist: Kit Eastman

This is how Kit describes herself taken from off her blog:
"I use the materials and techniques of a traditional Japanese textile art called katazome (stencil dyeing) to capture my experience of a natural place.  My materials - cloth, rice paste resist, soymilk, natural dyes and pigments - engage my senses. The process creates a centering rhythm and a space for reflection."

I love her Katazome prints but she also does some eco-printing.  I love it because they are so complex, certainly more than I have ever attempted.

Isn't that even lovelier than you ever imagined?  Here is the process she used:

"Started with ecoprint bundles around my favorite fall leaves simmered in madder; then painted some natural pigments on that … followed by a rice paste layer of my water stencil, using some thin tracing paper as a mask. More pigment layers and curing to come".

Here is another of her eco-prints.  The process has many steps so I am not going to even attempt to explain it but she does a really thorough description that is worth reading and then trying.

Fabric, Mordants and Alice Fox

There are four things you need to know to successfully eco-print: fabric, mordants, leaves, and the cooking process.  Fabrics is probably the easiest of the four.  Think of what will dye with MX dyes--natural plant based fibers (e.g. cotton and linen) and silk.  That is pretty much the same for eco-printing. Consider the weave of the fabric because the finer the weave of the fabric the better the print you will get from the leaves.  Some of my favorite pieces to eco-print are second hand items like antique hankies and table scarves.  The little extra lace, monogram or embroidery just adds more interest to the finished piece. I always wash my fabric first to get rid of the sizing but frankly with all the treatment that the fabric gets I don't know that it is necessary.  I have found from experience that smaller pieces of fabric will print better.  I love using yardage but when wrapping lots of layers of fabric for cooking the inner layers don't seem to get as much heat and don't print as well. 

 A mordant is necessary to create the chemical reaction for the leaves (et. al.) to print on the fabric.  Think of the necessity of soda ash for MX dyes.  There are lots of mordants and lots of debate on which mordants are best.  I think "best" is probably determined by the fabric, plants, heating techniques you use, and the outcome you want.  I have tried soy milk but without great success.  Soy milk makes the fabric react like a protein rather than a cellulose so the tannin in the leaves print better.

My mordant of choice right now is alum.  You can buy it at the grocery store in small quantities or online at places like Dharma.   Some people use a combination of alum and soda ash.    Alum needs to be dissolved in a bucket with water.  You need 5% -20% alum per weight of fabric ( Here is an example of the math: 5 to 20 grams alum per 100 grams fabric) or a combination of 4 tsp alum and 1/5 tsp washing soda per 4 oz fabric.   You need enough water to allow the fabric to move around freely.  Soak the fabric for at least 24 hours.  The fabric will then be ready to use immediately or to dry and use later.

Artist: Alice Fox

Another eco-print artist that I absolutely adore is Alice Fox.  She also rusts (yeah!!) and stitches leaves (who would have thought?) among other artistic uses of natural objects.  She has also written a book that I adore.  I don't know if I enjoy the book because I know more about eco-printing now  or if the book covers several topics in less depth.  Either way, I can follow the instructions.

Parts of a Whole and India Flint

Recently I was one of three people in the show, Parts of a Whole.  I bring this up because it was a fine art print show and my prints were eco-prints on fabric.  This month I'll be talking about the process I used for the eco-prints. For me one of the most exciting parts of being in the show is that it was not a fiber show or a quilt show.  The other artists were all traditional printers who printed with ink on paper.  My eco-prints were well received in the show and garnered many positive comments.  How cool to be a cross-over artist!

 I am just like you if you are not an expert on all things eco-printing.  What I know I have learned from books, blogs, and experimenting.  I do have some friends also interested in eco-prints and with whom I experiment.  One of my friends, Janine jGates, is going to post later this month so you'll get her experiences too.  I'll her her tell you more about herself in her first post.  So, this month we'll share what we have learned and we will connect you with some of the resources we have used.

A good place to start learning is by viewing eco-prints by lots of artists.  Lets start with India Flint from Australia.  This is a print from her website.  You have probably heard of her since she is the goddess of all things eco-prints.  Her work is exquisite and you will see some of the best of the best on her website.  If you are a beginning eco-printer I do have to warn you about her book, Eco Colour: Botanical Dyeing for Beautiful Fabric.  It is a marvelous book and is  not that expensive.  It was the very first book I bought when I was an absolute novice and, here is the warning, it was way too much information for me to start with.  I was overwhelmed.   If you are not easily overwhelmed and confused trying to learn everything at once then I highly recommend the book.  It is very complete.  Now that I have learned a bit about eco-printing  I should get it out now and learn even more.

Quality of Line

Lets go back to this wild child.  It is a  wild child for sure.  Here it is washed out.

I was hoping for an exciting piece.  I needed a bold statement line to get that effect.  Now with the bubbling of the thickened dye I got a bit more wild child than I had intended but I like it. It would have been a very different  piece, a Miss Manners piece, if I had chosen a different quality of line.  Not saying that is bad.  Just saying it would have been different.  So lets look at some of wild child's lines.

The fabric was dry (which probably increased the bubbling situation) but I laid all the lines down in one sessions and the lines bled into each other.  Isn't that great here?  Didn't work on other pieces like the IRO inspired pieces but is great for this one.

The washed out wild child was unbalanced.  I had used too many dark colored lines in some places and too little in others.  I needed to balance it.  More lines in its future.  Beth said she got a consistent line by putting the tip of the squirt bottle on the fabric.  I tried it. See that straight line up the middle of the picture? And the navy blue circles?  UGH!  GAG! Good line for somewhere else but it did not fit with the rest of the piece.  The wild child was just not that well-behaved and sedate.

So, worked on stronger lines but I was working on a new layer rather than with all the lines wet and bleeding into each.  See the difference? The new line doesn't play as nicely with the others.  But it is worth noting that it is more distinct.  Good to know for the future.


I had great fun with the wild child.  It took me three dye sessions to get her finished but so what.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  And I learned a lot about drawing lines with thickened dye.

Brought to you by Judith.

Now we are having fun!

Searching for cool art on the internet I found the work of Lena Nyadbi and Betty Mbijana.

First Artist Inspiration

"Lena Nyadbi is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from the Warmun Community in the Kimberley region of Western Australia." More information about her can be found here.  Isn't she fabulous?  Her is the picture I used as one inspiration.

I started out with a pink and blue screen print that I hated. Then I squirted lines on it.  I like it better but the line quality is all wrong. Don't they look like your sex education class drawings of sperm?  This piece definitely needed painted lines rather than squirted bottle lines.

Second Artist Inspiration

"Betty is a hard working artist, whose works are very popular and have wide appeal. 
The paintings are aerial views of women's ceremonies and depict the waterholes (often in sacred places) where they take place." She does not have a website but here are more images of her work.  This is the one I used for inspiration.

  So starting with a yard long piece of cotton that I had already done some surface design on I started drawing trying to emphasis the underlying designs.  Of course I was using my handy dandy hair-dye squirt bottle.  She used a brush to create hers.  I am still trying to master my squirt bottle so ...

Because the cotton was very tightly woven the dye did tend to bubble more than it would have on muslin.  You can really see the bubbling on most of the pictures.  Since I didn't care whether the lines were perfect or not (think of it as an element design) just kept going.

See the copy of the inspiration art in the above picture?

Brought to you by Judith