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...

How I use plant prints in multiple ways in my art quilts.

I'm enjoying making videos of my art making processes.  They are home-made videos without a whole heap of post-production editing, they are not scripted, they contain bloopers, the camera moves occasionally, and the sound is not perfect.  But that also makes them fun and relatively quick to do.  Plus, we are all makers, so we enjoy seeing a bit of hand-made imperfection, don't we?!

This video features yours truly running through the way I take one flora or plant print that I like and then use it in several different ways in my textile art.  

Are you enjoying seeing my work processes?  Is there anything in particular you'd like to see me run through?

And, of course, if you'd like to see any of this in person, your guild could book me for a class!  I can put together personalised classes on any of the processes I use in my textile art, just email me here and we can discuss your club's needs.
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How to make plant prints on fabric

I've been doing some more flora printing - the term I use for making plant prints on fabric.

The last photo I shared (above) generated quite a bit of interest and a few questions, so I thought I'd make a little video to share my process.  Not that it's complicated, but sometimes it's nice to see how someone else does it to give you the confidence and motivation to try it yourself.



So, have a watch, tell me what you think and whether it's something you've had a go at.  In the video I show a book cover that I've made with the plant printed fabric.  You can find the tutorial on how to make the cover here.

Above is the finished book cover that I started in the video and below is another (sorry about the distracting fabric it's lying on) plus some cards I made with the same technique.

Enjoy!