Flora Printing

I've been doing a lot of flora printing lately.  Maybe it's a Spring thing, with new foliage appearing, new colour and life in the outdoors.  It's making me sit up and take notice of the beauty around us.  It's also easier to go and pick foliage, although fresh soft Spring growth isn't always the best for printing with.  You need robust leaves, not too twiggy, but not too delicate either.  I've also been pressing some sprigs to see how dried leaves work.

Here's one I prepared earlier.  It's a metre of fabric that I dyed using an ombré technique using cerulean blue dye. Then I started flora printing on it, doing the lighter shades first.  I'm aiming for the impression of looking up through leaves, but examining it now I think it needs more very light leaves in the middle and some even darker ones in front.

I've also been working on smaller pieces.  These are flora prints too, but whereas the piece above used flora to directly print on the fabric, these smaller pieces have been done on a gelli plate with a few different layers.

Experimentation always includes disappointment alongside satisfaction, and it often takes multiple tries to reach the satisfaction part.  I'm glad I kept going with my flora printing trials.  When I remember back to my first ones (some photos of them popped up in my photo feed the other day), I cringe.  So if you've tried something new recently, and been disappointed, give it another go.  Flora printing is now one of my favourite practices!

PS I'm posting on my iPad because I'm at the beach for the weekend, apologies for some of the wonky fonts...