Botanical printing on paper

Botanical printing on paper is cheap and relatively easy. You can make it as simple or sophisticated as you want. You can use up natural dyes and small amounts of plant material leftover from larger projects and use more or less any paper you can lay your hands on. 

Equipment

Paper - this can be artist paper eg cartridge, watercolour or sketchbook: plain wallpaper aka lining paper, pages from old book, old envelopes, copy paper, repair tissue, kraft paper or thin card. In fact try anything that isn’t too thin or shiny. 

Leaves and flowers - use the ones you know print well on fabric either because they have high tannin or give good colour. Leaves that have a good shape but are not good printers can be used as resists either tucked under a printer or when using a dye. Flowers especially daisy shaped ones work well. 

Tiles or similar- I prefer to use leftover ceramic tiles cut to size to fit my fish kettle. However I know that Rita Summers aka Gone Rustic successfully uses heavy duty cardboard. Another method is to wrap the paper around a tin can but I find that the paper has a tendency to bend afterwards.  

Bull dog clips or small clamps or string. 

Vessel in which to simmer your tile bundle. Pan, Turkey roaster, fish kettle.  

Spray bottle with 50/50 white vinegar and water. 

Optional

Dye of your choice. I usually use an exhausted bath after dyeing fabric. 

Onion skins and Avocado skins and stones can be useful for a dye 

Rusty iron objects for your bath

The paper can be mordanted if you want a particular colour effect but generally as the life of a paper print isn’t that long compared to say a scarf I only spritz with the vinegar water. You could dip in alum to encourage greens or iron water to sadden and darken the prints as with the Acer print above. 

To achieve additional effects and colour I usually predye the paper in the examples below I used logwood but equally good are onion, weld, Brazil wood or avocado to name a few. 

Method 

Place a piece of prepared paper on a tile. I rip the paper rather than cut for a more natural finish. Lay your chosen leaves on the paper, if you have predyed it is worth remembering to use a leaf that will either discharge the dye or act as a resist to give interesting shapes. In the examples above I have used Eucalyptus, Acer and Gingko to achieve these effects. Continue making sandwiches of paper, leaves, paper until you have several layers. Place the second ceramic tile on top and secure with bull dog clips or string. 

Place in a pan of boiling water in which are some rusty nails or iron water. High tannin eucalyptus leaves will also help give the desired darkening effect of edges. 
Paper needs to be simmered for an hour. After this time lift out of pan and wait until it cools sufficiently to handle. 

Below is just before removing the leaves from the paper. If you have a stubborn leaf that is too soft to remove leave alone until bone dry and it will flick off easily. 

Iron flat if necessary

Gift tags, cards, handmade books, notelets, envelopes are just a few of the ways I use my botanically printed paper.

I regularly post on my Instagram page @inspired_texiles and Facebook page Inspired Textiles.

If you found this post useful, please comment so I know I am helping someone enjoy this serendipitous art.