Dyeing Paper

It's that time of year again.
I can step outside, pluck a few leaves, pull up a couple of weeds and grab that bag of frozen onion skins that I have been saving, and invade the kitchen to do some natural dyeing.

This year, I decided to try a few new (to me) and different leaves/weeds/items in the dye pot.
I have fresh eucalyptus leaves from my own backyard, avocado skins from previous meals, not to mention a few vegetable leaves I thought I'd throw in the mix.

Keep in mind that even if I can't obtain any color form the items that I use, they usually act as a resist to other colors coming through the paper.

I'm going to use watercolor paper (three different types and weights) as well as a few pieces of drawing paper (Strathmore 80 lb from a spiral-bound pad).

I have a thin box full of various weights & brands of watercolor paper that I have either bought or been gifted. I have no idea about the brands (unless it is printed on the paper) and usually guess on the weight but it's all good.
This type of activity is all about experimenting - and I love to experiment!

Last night I gathered up a bunch of paper- 90 lb up to 140 lb. I folded a couple of pieces in an accordion manner and just folded the remaining in half so I can stitch it into book form later.

I stuffed it full of a variety of greenery - mostly fresh but some of it came from my file of pressed items that I have collected along the way.
An example of what went into the pot - red tip, eucalyptus (leaves and bark), broccoli, tomato, nandina, sumac, hosta, peace lily, muscadine (leaves and vine), apple, avocado skin, onion (yellow & red skin), oak, maple, dandelion, fern and several unidentified weeds (maybe a few other things...).
Whew...once I start gathering things, it's like a madness takes over and I have to grab a handful of everything in sight.
In my own defense, you just never can tell when a plant will surprise you with an awesome display of color or turn out to be the best resist you have ever seen...
so, try it all, I say.

Here are some of the initial results from last night's pot.

Some of the best color from very unlikely places-
a weed vine with stickers on it.

One of the accordion fold books that I will be making.

The upper right hand image is from a
pecan stem that I had pressed from last year.

I love the layers  of color!

See the emerald green color?
I think that came from one of the sumac leaves.

This is a young shoot from our black walnut tree.

Even the cardboard that I use as the "cover" gets a
great dye job!

I have more on the drying table to show as well as two pots full of more paper and a little fabric.

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".

Stackaholics Anonymous

I'm joining in with Seth Apter (and a host of others) in standing tall & proud with my stack. (thanks Kelli for the link!)

My husband asked "Which stack?"

Haha...isn't that funny (and true).

I have said before that I have an over active imagination and with that, comes an over abundance of ideas.
My attention span is not overly large though...

You know what follows - lots of UFO's.

I have stacks of class ideas, a stack of step outs for class ideas that were abandoned for better ideas, stacks of files of interesting magazine pages, stacks of interesting pieces of things that have texture, stacks of things that are red, stacks of things that are...

You get the idea. (No, I am not a hoarder) (I don't think I am...)

So, thank goodness Seth narrowed things down for us all by drawing attention to
"The Paper Stack".

Since I couldn't back far enough away from my stack of "paper to be used in journal/book making" to get a photo, I decided to simply photograph my stack of paper filled handmade books. This is not all of them as I have them sent several out to various other homes at the moment.

So - here it is. My photo confessional of the day along with my admission.

I, too, am a Stackaholic.

 Come on, you'll feel better after you confess it...Join in with us!

Texture on Fabric

There are a lot of different ways to obtain texture on fabric. I've been experimenting (again) with different mediums.

Below are several photos of the results.

I started out with a medium weight canvas fabric. Cheap canvas. No need to experiment with the expensive stuff, huh?

I applied a thin to medium coat (apx.1/16" to 1/8") of molding paste and used different "tools" (i.e. fingers, baby wipes, crunched up paper) to obtain the texture on the wet paste.

Let this dry.

I used various Golden fluid acrylic paints to add washes of color.

Click on the pictures to see the detail.

It's just awesome to see how much texture you can get and how the paint really catches on the hills and valleys of the molding paste. I used "light" molding paste so I could sew through it later.

And yes, your machine can handle it ...  as long as it not TOO thick... and it would probably sew through a lot more than what you think anyway. (My hubby  just has to clean the machine a little more frequently)

You can see the frayed edges of the canvas material in this photo.

Here's a close-up of one section of the piece. I just love the colors!

This next photo is of a piece of paper that I used.  I actually started out covering paper and switched to fabric. The results will be just about the same with either one. I use paper and fabric interchangeably in my work anyway.

This is the same narrow piece of fabric from above.

My favorite area is in the center of it . The texture is just amazing,

as well as the flexibility of the entire piece of fabric!

I hope this will encourage you to experiment with different ways to approach your art making.

You just have to be willing to ask yourself this question

"Gee, I wonder what would happen if I did this?"