Experimenting with Sunprint Paper

Today was a sunny fall day here in New Hampshire when the sun isn't very high in the sky for long.  So, at about 11:30 Elizabeth decided to try an experiment using some recently purchased blueprint paper.  She purchased the paper at the science center in Holderness, NH, but it comes from the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA. 

Not really sure why the paper is for a refill kit but it has been treated and although the pieces were quite small, they sufficed for this experimentation.  

First, she decided on two items, one a small piece of fern and the other some wild strawberry leaves.  The tiny size was to be in proportion to the paper which is only 4 inches by 4 inches.  The first test was to use the paper following the directions on the package.  Exposure was 3 minutes under glass, the paper was dry and then rinsed in cool water for 5 minutes.

The second trial or test was exposure of 3 minutes under glass.  First the fern and leaves were lightly sprayed with soda ash using a mister and then rinsed in cool water for 5 minutes with a second rinse following dunking the paper into hydrogen peroxide.  It is amazing how fast the color changes to a deep blue when you use the hydrogen peroxide.  Prior to rinsing the light and dark spaces are reversed.

Trial number three was again 3 minutes of exposure to the sun after the addition of water on the background plastic and another misting of soda ash, the rinse was cool water and hydrogen peroxide.  All the trials used the same leaves.  This would qualify as a #wetcyan print.  The trials are number one on the bottom of the photo below, two in the center and three on the top  What's the red on the tip of the fern in trial three?  Well, the canvas work surface under the papers must have had a few specks of a red dye on it and the dampness of the paper picked it up.  Notice also that since these photos were taken about 2 hours after the experiment, the color of trial one (the bottom) has darkened significantly from what it was right after rinsing.

Trial four was the same as trail three except that instead of a 3 minute exposure it was left in the sun for 3 hours.  Here is how it looked.

Most of the blue cyanotype was washed away from overexposure and or the amount of liquid as it baked under the glass cover.  Prior to the hydrogen peroxide being added you couldn't see any of the blue at all.  Here are the four prints together.  The top row left to right is trial one and two and the bottom row is trial three and four.

This was a fun experiment and I still have four pieces of paper left in the package to play with on the next sunny day.

Checking In on Elizabeth

Alas, while Elizabeth is busy in New Hampshire, she hasn't been busy writing blog posts.  However, she has been posting over on Instagram.  If you use Instagram, please consider following us at #pgfiber2art.  Instagram is a great platform for visual items.  You can easily scroll through thousands of beautiful pictures from artists around the globe.

Her continuation of quilt camp alone is not as synergistic as camp when both of us are together, but with retirement came the extra weeks to stay at Lake Winnipesaukee and who can pass that up?  Looking forward to fall colors around the lake and still enjoying the sunset views.

She has been dyeing some baby garments for her new grandson and using Color Magnet from Jacquard to give the garments some monochromatic depth.  Color Magnet draws the dye to wherever it was placed and it is thick enough to be able to use with thermofax screens.  Using a felt covered piece of cardboard to protect the back of the shirt, she screens a design on the shirt and then puts it in an immersion dye bath.  Here are a few results, including a blue shirt with our new spiral circles screen and a series of small colorful pieces with our new Queen Anne's lace screen.

She also has been using up some very old Solar Fast which is a product brushed on the fabric and then used to make a solar print with botanicals to block out the sun.  It produces a negative like effect.  The color was supposed to be avocado but it is more mustard like, probably because it was old.  Moral of the story is to use up your supplies and don't let them sit around.  These are some maple leaves which were feasted upon by an insect.

Lastly, she also has tried some of the wet cyanotype printing using the Jacquard Cyanotype Pretreated Fabric Sheets.  Soon the sun will be too low in the sky and not enough humidity to play with these last two techniques.  The top photo is coleus leaves and the bottom is oak.

But until the sun starts to fade, she will squeeze as much out of the "extended" summer as she can.

Cork Wallet Class

Ha!  The irony of our last post 2 weeks ago (!) about "keeping the momentum going".  We obviously have not kept the blog momentum going!  But I must say that Elizabeth is doing her best in New Hampshire to keep the quilt camp spirit going.  She continues to play with wet cyan and more dyeing with color magnet, but more about that in another post.

Yesterday Sue taught her class on making a cork wallet with the Lucky Penny pattern from Sallie Tomato.  Though a small group, we all had fun and everyone came up with colorful, creative takes using Sue's modifications to the pattern.  The original pattern looks like this on the inside.

The 2 tan rectangles are slots for bills or anything else flat. What you see through the openings is the back side of the outside layer of cork.  Since this didn't allow for any place to put coins, or a secure pocket, on her second sample Sue decided to add a zipper to the top section and make a closed pocket.  She also added a strip of fabric behind the bottom opening to add some color.

This is the version that the students in class decided to make.  Here are their results.

Linda chose a navy blue cork fabric and accented it with red stitching, zipper, and print fabric.

It turned out great! We all thought it resembled denim.

Etta combine pink and grey cork fabric.  Above is the outside.

And the inside.  Like the contrasting colors.

Maria used the same teal color as Sue's sample and accented with pink/red.  Interestingly, she had recently bought a small change purse/wallet out of the same color cork in Portugal and was making the wallet to match.

Sue stitched up a third sample using a beige cork that she had screen printed with our crackle screen.

The accents are coral fabric, zipper and thread.  So.......lots of ideas and color options for personalizing this wallet.  We even came up with another idea in class.  Instead of making the zipper pocket in the top section, it could be the middle section by changing where you stitch to make it a closed pocket.  Happy to have found this free pattern at Sallie Tomato!

After Quilt Camp - Keeping the Momentum Going

Once Sue leaves quilt camp, it really does get quiet and lonely.  Sometimes it is hard to keep momentum going and keep creating.  But this year, Elizabeth has 6 more weeks to work in the garage studio. So, she decided to try some of the wet cyanotype printing like Sue did last week.  This was the new technique we tried this year after seeing lots of Facebook posts by Sue Reno and Lesley Riley.  Cyanotype, or "blueprint" printing, is similar to sun printing in that the fabric is treated with certain chemicals, resist items are placed on top, and then placed in the sun for the print to develop.  In normal dry cyanotype printing, the fabric turns a deep blue color.  Both Sue and Lesley have been experimenting with wet cyanotype, which (we think) produces more interesting results and varied colors.  So we wanted to give it a try.

We are lucky that a few years ago we found a very large picture frame at the swap shop located at the dump.  We wanted the frame to hang it from the tree branch down by the lake and use for a photo shoot area when Elizabeth's son was married.  Thus she had removed the large piece of glass and the picture.  The glass is now being used to firmly hold down our plant material on top of the fabric pretreated for the exposure to the sun during the cyanotype process.

Her first try was using oak leaves.  She specifically looked for a few leaves that had holes in them so that the sun would shine on the holes and develop them like the background color. She sprayed the edges of the fabric with a solution of soda ash and water (just the same as we use when dyeing our fabrics and t-shirts).  Then placed the glass down on the leaves and left them in the sun.  Most of the change took place within half an hour but she left the "leaf sandwich" outside for two days; one night it even rained on it.  It was rinsed in cold water and then let to sit in a bath of hydrogen peroxide and water for about 20 minutes before rinsing again in cold water, then left on the clothesline to dry.

Above, after rinsing.  Below, when dry.

Her second try was leaves from wild strawberry plants that grow along the foundation of the house near the water faucet.  She picked these leaves because of the serrated edges, thinking they would be different from the deciduous tree leaves and ferns which are also available around the yard.  In the spirit of experimentation, she used more water on the glass which touched the leaves and immediately ran down some ripples in the black garbage bag which covers the foam core board on which the fabric lays.

You can clearly see the ripples in the final print.  Elizabeth had read an article by Lesley Riley suggesting a rinse in vinegar solution after a warm water rinse and as she had a very very old bottle of red wine vinegar (so old it had sludge on the bottom of the bottle), she used that in a 4:1 vinegar to water soak.  She misread the article which said 1:4.  Oh well, it was an experiment.  Immediately the water and the design turned a lovely teal blue.

After letting it soak for about 10 minutes she rinsed it out and this was how it looked.

After hanging on the line to dry it had lightened up in the areas of the leaves and now looks like this:

We are intrigued by this technique and will continue to experiment, and try to keep the momentum of quilt camp going!