First Eco Print Reveal

This has been a long process-I should not have set up two stacks of papers in 12 inch tiles-but I was thinking they both would fit into my roaster pan. Not really after adding plenty of water and rocks on top to weight them down.

I will describe the process in more detail in a soon to come post.

   I thought my iron water seemed too potent-and it was. Many artists are using straight vinegar and rusty items-others are only using water and rusty items, and some are using half and half. I think My next set up will be half and half.
   I almost rinsed the leaves off, not sure if that would have taken away all of the print. My iron water was very very brown -like a dye almost-if I could do over I would  have added lots of water to this iron water. My memory is reminding me now that this happened to me on my first eco print on fabric-but I did not use iron water back then oh well ha ha

   I added pomogranat rind to the water-it gives yellow dye and when it hits iron it is to turn green-For some reason I did not get the greens. At least while wet not showing up.
   I liked the idea of what one artist was doing-she laid down parchment paper-than the paper-then the leaves-then parchment paper-she said she got much clearer prints this way and also she would not need to decide which side she wanted to use. I think this is a good idea unless you want a more blurred result of the prints-which would be pretty with colors-dyes in the water.

  These photos of the papers are right after being revealed, rinsed off, and laid out to dry. So these are wet and will change some what after being totally dry. The yellows that came through nicely are from the red bud and mimosa. I don't think much yellow came through from the dye, again once dry I can see more of what happened. I know I am not happy with the ones that are very black but everything did print well-except for a wildflower I added to one sheet.

  I just set up the second tile stack and added blue rit dye to the pot. They have been tied up quite awhile now-as I started this project very early this morning-we will see what happens with those.

  photos will enlarge to full size just click on them

Now that I loot at these photos I think the yellow dye did come through, but the iron water was just too strong on some of the leaves. A thought-I did add tannin to my alum mordant as these two work together with cellulose-any thoughts if that added to some of the very dark prints??