I consider that botanical printing (or ecoprinting as it is better known lately) is always an experiment. There are lots of variables beyond the obvious of the use of tannins and/or iron to bring out color or an imprint. Does the stage of growth of the plant make a difference? Is there a difference if the front or the back of the leave or the flower is against the cloth? How fresh is the plant? How about dried plants?

Here is what it looks like while I’m working. These are two different scarves, but I’ll end up with four because I put a second one on top of the first. These were soaked in a tannin solution before adding the plants. The second scarf is soaked in an iron solution. As I put the iron soaked scarf on the tannin soaked scarf a chemical reaction occurs that turns the tannin soaked scarf gray. Wow! Why didn’t we do this in high school chemistry? Maybe some of the rest of chemistry would have stuck.

The pair of scarves sandwiching the leaves and flowers is rolled on a PVC pipe, tied tightly, and then steamed for an hour or more. The rolls cool overnight and then I get to open them. These two scarves are the pair from the left. The one on the left is the iron soaked scarf that was put on top of the flowers and leaves before rolling. Those are cosmos flowers from my dye garden and wild grape leaves from the front fence. I find it interesting that the top scarf has the imprints of veins from the leaves and the leaves act as a resist for the bottom scarf. (That green leaf is the actual leaf I haven’t pulled off yet.) The flowers print on both, but differently.

Here is another pair. That’s indigo leaves on the left and dahlia flowers on the right, along with something I can’t remember although I think I wrote it somewhere.

Here is the big reveal of the dahlia scarf.

The indigo scarf. In these two pairs, the leaves printed on both scarves instead of acting as a resist.

I have used a canning kettle in the past, but I just found this tamale steamer and bought it. The advantage is that a steamer tray comes with it. However I didn’t know if I could put enough water in to last over an hour, and I recently ran my old pot dry which ruined the scarves. So I wired the steamer rack high enough to put plenty of water in the bottom. Now I can fit many more at a time.

I’m experimenting with square scarves. I haven’t figured out the best way to display them at the Artery yet. This is maple, grape, and indigo leaves.

Here is the finished pair. Notice that the indigo dyes green on both scarves but the maple and grape leaves act as a resist on the gray scarf.

I worked on three at a time here. Maple and grape leaves on the left, indigo leaves and flowers and cosmos flowers in the middle, and cosmos leaves and flowers on the right.

These are the two scarves from the middle after unrolling.

These are the scarves from the left in that photo of three, after washing and ironing. I have four scarves listed on the Artery website right now–working on more listings but need photos. A lot more are in the store in Davis.

Here is a detail.

I printed more scarves the next day. All the scarves have been silk, but I tried a new batch that are 63% silk and 37% silk (right).

Here is that wool/silk scarf after finishing. These are the only ones on my website right now. Hopefully I’ll get more listed soon. I’ll tell you more about that other scarf in another post.

I need to get more photos.