This was the first week I printed with fresh leaves. May is turning out very cold here so everything is growing rather slowly. I collected gorse flowers and leaves of wild rose and blackberries, they are still small and soft and when tightly bundled they stick to the fabric much more than mature leaves. It was easier to remove them after the silk was completely dry. The prints are charming, not just the shape but also variety of colours.
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I printed other fabrics, will post photos later. All prints were much different to what I expected, especially colours. It made me think about mark making and analogy with life. How we are bundled, sometimes tight and under a heat.. expecting, wishing to make a mark. Growing older, looking back, seeing marks we have made. Considering the ones we wanted to make and haven’t, the ones we have and we didn’t want to or wished they were ‘a different’ colour… The visible, the invisible, the fading, the lasting. Temporary vs eternal…
Red 2 White 
Oh Monika, the prints, your words … it all is so good. I wish I lived closer so that I could come visit you & see all this closer !! ox
Sonia, thank you, maybe one day 🙂
Wise words……
Spring printing is indeed different than autumn……. both in life and leaf.
Hello Monika,
I am intrigued by the process you use … could you explain what baths you use and how you bundle the leaves. I love the effect of the leaves’ silhouette on the fabric, but as yet have not been able to capture it.
Many thanks!
Hello there! Here in fact I steamed the silk rather than cooking in a bath, to get sharper print. I simply laid the plants on one half of the cloth, folded and rolled. I often press plants for a few days to make them more manageable and less crinkled and also infuse them in a bucket of rusty water.
Beautiful work, and lovely words. Your connections from art to life are beautiful, as a pastor I’m often connecting things together, and I’v got lots of theorys with spinning, now I suppose I’ll be over-thinking my dye pot as well.
I’n glad to see the rosepetal pot worked, I get such lovely deep purple from the petals.