Botaniocal printing in Spain 西班牙植物印染

How I like the Andalusia region of Spain, especially in spring with flowers blooming everywhere. That led me travel to south Spain and spent some time earlier with like-minded people in Montilla, Cordoba and Malaga for botanical printing as well explore the beauty of Spain. This post is about the eco printing with native plants on leather, fabric and papers. Next will be the stunning views of the region.

 

 In south Spain, lands with olive groves, vineyards as well blooming cherry blossoms or almond is common.  For me it's eye opening for the stunning views no matter strolling on foot or in a train passing by.

 

 More gorgeous photos followed in the next post.

 

 The Moorish old quarter in one of the beautiful villages

What made me happy on arrival was the yellow marguerite daisy all over the rural.  I am glad to share experiments of my way of working on eco printing. We tried different substrates mainly with the yellow wild daisy,

 Both Carmen and Ana printed on leather, linen silk and papers but with different mordant. They are pleased with their experiments particularly the yellow daisy is amazing.

 

For mordant we used dried husks of pomegrante for tannin extract plus alum and ferrous sulphate.  Blankets of iron and tannin vice versa for different outcome.

 

Simple natural dyes prepared for the fabulous results. 

 

Printing on leather in low heat is fine.

Printing on fabric in high heat for an hour.
 

Layout on paper with sandwich stacks of plants and blankets

Tannin from pomegranate with iron contact gets olive color background on this linen silk

Color shades of assorted species of flowers printed on leather

Bold prints of coreopsis, even dried ones are effective on any substrates

I like such vivid flower prints on linen silk

On paper wild marguerite daisy also looks outstanding

Carmen's piece of linen silk with alum mordant,  thus the yellow flowers tended more yellowish

Purple from begonia leaf

Printing on soft and thin lamb skin.  

Ana's skirt of her own way of mordant, covered by iron blanket.  Dainty yellow flower printing on lower part.

I have a memorable good time in Andalusia thanks to Carmen, Ana and their families'  warm hospitality.

Botanical imprinted leather purses 植物印染皮包包

Another experiment of plants imprints just done. Simply a leather clutch of botanical printing. 

Raw leather printed with plants grasped from my urban yard. Swatches cut into pieces and sewed the purses.

This is layout on leather.

Background pink dye from logwood chips.

After some time of heating, botanical marks and dyes imprinted on leather then mounted to air dry.

Before and after of the leather prints.

Swatches sewed into purses. Size of this is good as cosmetic bag.

Another piece of rectangle size swatch just three-fold made into a clutch.

A simple clutch for little things.

So I’m indulged in experiments and my samples are sometimes made into something practical.

The video is about the making of prints. Hope you get inspired.

Botanical imprints on leather 皮革上植物印染

 

Mogi is always in a comfort zone.  He finds safe and pampered. He is my best creative director and spokesperson.  He draws eye balls.  Such a brat makes me happy.  He played with autumn windfalls while I played magic with those plants around. 

Mogi，我家碧眼小靈精是我最佳創作總監，晨早已躲在小天地把弄，剛剛印好又縫了的皮包我愛不釋手，尤其那非洲菊印一次很細緻，再用多一次仍然那麼清晰，這皮包包還用上幾種自己種植的花朵印染，更顯獨特，提著包包走在沙灘或街上拍過照......

 

"See what mum has done other than fabric prints........"

 

A bag of botanical imprints from handles to body, front and back are leather.  Inner lining also of botanical prints.

 

This is the layout of plants on leather which I sewed into the bag.  The two main flowers are gerbra (非洲菊), one is fresh and the other is the second time of using.  The middle one is Rhododendron hubrida (比利時杜鵑)

Two bundles in the pot

 

My open kitchen in town, some ingredients with own gown.

After a while steaming beautiful and delicate prints of gerbra on leather.  This is one of the leather bundles with lac background.

Blueish purple from begonia heracleifolia

 

Gerbra is the ever pretty prints on leather. Ever used for the second time is so clean and clear.

Unwrapping is excited

  

The left image is fresh print of Gerbra and the left one is the second time printing, looks delicate but a bit smaller on the second time.

 

Mounted to dry to make it flat and smooth. 

Before & After of the leather prints

 

Two pieces of the leather prints of gerbra and other plants.

 

I cut the right size to sew with other cochinael dyed leather for the bag.

 

The other part of the leather sewed with other previously prune leaf printed scrap to make a purse.

A woman always in her own natural botanical wear

A set of leather prints - purse and bag.

 

This is the purse one side printed with prune leaves I done in France workshop for the demo. I like the very strong prints of prune. 

 

"Hey,  everywhere with mum's natural printing. I like most the canopy

 

Anyone likes to play around natural botanical imprints, here is instant download pdf tutorial on my ETSY.