Sun Printing........or Block Printing?

Last week Sue set about doing round 2 of sun printing.  We had just watched a Quilting Arts video the night before by Sue Reno on "Surface Design Essentials for the Printed Quilt" and sun printing is one of the things she talks about.  One of her techniques is to create a "halo" effect with the paint, using one color in the center and another around the edges, so she decided to try it.  She started with 2 pieces of previously dyed fabric - one hand-dye (purple) and one Cherrywood (green).

After applying paint (Pebeo Setacolor), she layered on the 2 plant materials she wanted to print and covered the board with organza, tacked it in place, and set it on the deck in the sun. 

We haven't bothered to press the natural items we print with in the past and have had successful results, probably because they are most often ferns which are easily flattened by pulling the organza taught.  Well, lesson learned - these 2 should have been pressed!  The prints in this case were a big FAIL!

In the purple/blue piece, you can see the leaves and stem, but not very clearly.  Definitely not a stand alone piece.

In this green piece, you can barely see the pine needles near the top.  So, what to do?  Toss them in the scrap pile?

This week, Sue pulled out her wooden printing blocks to play with and decided that these 2 pieces would be fine for block printing.  Certainly more usable that way than as they were.

What do you think?  We think these 2 pieces have been salvaged for future use in art quilts or improvisational piecing.