Eco Printing from the Shoreline
A significant portion of my childhood was spent on this beach at Ft. DeSoto Park near St. Petersburg, Florida. Each winter when visiting my mom, we spend some time there. It's always a highlight of my stay.
This year, the mysteries of printing with plant pigments is always on my mind. And I had read recently that sea water makes a good mordant for printing on cotton. The photo above indicates it might be a good mordant for sand as well. Do you see the brown pigment bleeding from the mangrove leaf?
My shoreline walk that windy, cool day yielded lots of mangrove leaves washed up on the beach, along with some seaweeds. I used them as I found them - with a salty, sandy coating straight form the sea.
The seaweed (Sargassum, I believe) printed beautifully on seawater-soaked watercolor paper that was steamed in a packet, along with the mangrove leaves. I love the experiments!
5 comments:
How cool!never thought about the salt water!!!
As almost always, I did not do the controlled experiment. But it seemed to work.
I can see this leading down so many paths.
We just got back on Sunday Nassau where we kayaked amongst the mangroves. I should have pulled some leaves!
It would be interesting to compare the results using fresh mangrove leaves off the trees with those that floated around on the sea for awhile (which is what I used). Maybe a tropical field trip??!!
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