Friend and fellow printmaker, Jane, invited Hayley and I to her studio to try out her heat bed press. Jane has created some most beautiful lampshades and purses to name but a few using this process.
The material used to print the plant material onto makes such a difference, thin mixed fibre fabric leaving less of an impression than thick black out fabric or velour which makes for a rich sheen.
The colours come from pigments which come in powder form and have to be mixed with water before applying it to paper and left to dry. This has shapes, in this case leaves and seed heads (flattened in the press), laid on top with a piece of fabric and a piece of newsprint to protect the press.
Set at 200 degrees Celsius, the press is left for one minute which is sufficient for the pigments to heat through and transfer, reaching their true colour.
The first try results in a white blanked out shape where the leaf was with a coloured background and a leaf with printed colour on it. This leaf can be used to print either onto a white piece of fabric, or onto a pre-printed section. Building up layers of print and ghost print in this manner leads to interesting and varied results.
Hayley opted to try out a variety of material, the most successful being catkins (surprisingly), fern and bamboo leaves. I stuck to the same love-in-the-mist seed heads and dried grass for all.
My favourite? This one below. :)
