Baby Eucalyptus

My husband and I (mostly he) planted three eucalyptus trees in our yard this year.
I cannot believe how quickly they are growing!
I have tried to be patient and not pick too many leaves or stems but...
I have not always been able to resist.

A few days ago, I clipped a few stems and rolled them into a pieces of (some kind of) silk fabric.
I forget the exact type - I'll have to look on the invoice.
I rolled one piece onto a copper pipe and popped it into my rice steamer (less than $25 on eBay!) for about an hour.
Then I left it sitting in the steamer for a few days (I was busy but then forget about it).
It was still wet but I couldn't resist having a peek at it.

This is what my baby eucalyptus is capable of!

I love the darker areas where the fabric
is in direct contact with the copper pipe.

The pipe was too short for the width of the fabric
so I folded the edges of the fabric in.

The resulting design (on the edges) is looking pretty good.

I did show enough restraint to roll the fabric back up on the pipe (without looking inside!).
I'll allow it to dry on the pipe and unroll if after I get back from Colorado - or when I remember.
I love the surprises that tiny organisms create inside the wet fabric if you allow it sit awhile. But it sure is difficult to wait that long!

I'm off to Colorado tomorrow.
I'll be teaching two really fun and creative classes. I do love to share what I do and how I do it.
But what I love the most is when people (who think they are not "the creative type") realize that they have a well of untapped creativity right inside of them!
I do believe that we can all be creative, we all can be artistic and that we all can learn to look at things around you in a more creative manner.
Sometime you just need a nudge in the right direction.
At an art festival a couple of years ago, I heard my husband talking to a woman about my classes. She said that she was not "the artsy type" and the classes would be wasted on her.
My husband said "Oh no, my wife specializes in working with people just like you. You will surprise yourself in one of her classes."
What an awesome thing to eavesdrop and hear about you!
He did convince the woman that she could create something in one of my classes and after I had time to talk to her, she had more hope that she could be a maker of really cool things.
And what a fabulous honor it is to assist people in finding that hidden (or stifled) part of themselves.

I hope that you all are exercising your creativity.
Just like our muscles will atrophy if they are not used - our creativity will also waste away.

Botanical Garden Bounty

I continue to be enthralled with natural dyeing/eco printing/whatever you want to call it.

I call it fun!

Even though it is (mostly) unrepeatable and not really predictable, I find it to be the most addictive thing that I have ever done.

I can see why people like India Flint dedicate their lives to it (even though I know that there is so much more to what she does).

I am indebted to the path that she and so many others have blazed in the call of creating with wild color.

I have been spending most of my spare time at my dyeing pots.

I went over to the SC Botanical Garden in Clemson this week and met with one of the horticulturalists (thank you John!).

We spent a little bit of time under an ailing eucalyptus tree that they have, talking about what I was doing, what they were doing for/to the tree.

They are going to wait a bit longer and allow the soft stems to grow more, then clip several in order to propagate them.

I was allowed to harvest a small bag of green (but mature) leaves as well as all I wanted from under the tree.

As you can well imagine, I came home with a grocery bag full of leaves and several pic es of the beautiful bark.

I was also allowed to harvest leaves the other eucalyptus there. 

It is an E.cinerea with the largest leaves that I have ever seen on one. Some of them were as larges as 4-5 inches wide.

But then again, I haven't seen that many mature ones before.

Here's an experiment with some of the leaves from both varieties as well as fresh vs old leaves on linen.

I love the colors!

Back to the call of the wild. 

I got the most beautiful prints from a "weed" in my yard! I can't wait to experiment a little more with it.

I'll post photos when I get a chance.

Eco Prints/Monoprinting

I have fallen in love with natural dyeing...perhaps the printing to be exact.
I have always picked up leaves, pressed them between pages of a book or tacked them onto my inspiration board. I often use them in my artwork (check this out).
I can almost remember where each one came from, what I was doing the day I picked it up and who I was with.
I love trees, rocks and moss...all of this is evidenced by the amount of these natural items in my studio (and car, and patio, and my husband's vehicle, and in the kayak...).
Now I have another way to use it in my artwork!

I tried several different ways to print the leaves of a local eucalyptus tree. They grow well in my area and are able to live quite well through the winter.
Even though I don't have one in my yard, there is a huge tree not to far from my house...
a steady supply of leaves to play with!

This is a "ghost" print on a piece of previously dyed cotton fabric.
Notice the green fern monoprint in the upper right hand corner.

Here is a close up of the fern monoprint (an unexpected  extra!).

Look at the awesome color! (silk)

True. Love.
(on silk)

Eco Prints

I've been experimenting with natural dyeing and eco printing.
What a ton of work but man-oh-man, when it begins to work the way you envisioned it, it is beautiful.
It is addictive.
It is all consuming.

Or maybe I am a bit OCD and once I find something I really like, I jump in with both feet.
Both hands.
Silk fabric.
Cotton fabric.
Organza.
Watercolor paper.
Handmade paper.
Bristol Vellum paper.

(you get the picture??)

Here are a few pieces that I ooh'ed and ahhh'ed over when they came out of my caldron.

300 lb hot press watercolor paper

300 lb hot press watercolor paper

110 lb Exact Index paper with beautiful muted colors
and embossed areas from the thicker leaves.

110 lb Exact Index paper with the same muted colors
and embossed areas.

 The paper really accepts the color from the monoprint much better than fabric.
Well -except eucalyptus...silk fabric not only accepts the color from the eucalyptus, it revels in the marriage of the two.
The first few times that I tried dyeing or printing with eucalyptus were disappointing.
Only pale yellows, maybe a hint of green.
The following one is on linen. While I do like the pale colors, I was really looking for the bold orange-ish color that I had seen other natural dyers obtain.

Then I began to break away from what I was reading and started doing things the way that I usually do...
the mad scientist way.
I combined a bit of information from this book, or this book, a little from a variety of blogs that I found, threw in a dash of (my) logic and the colors began changing a little bit.

Look! Look! I see a little bit of color change going on!

I'll end here but will do a post later this week showing the rest of my "experiments".