Friday 10 June 2016

Hammer Printing Fresh Leaves onto Cloth

Putting a bit of plant material inside a folded calico cloth, then walloping it with a hammer, creates results surprising to those of us accustomed to simmering up plants to make a dye bath. The colour that mordanted wool takes up from a prolonged warming in a plant dye bath rarely corresponds to the original plant colour - for example, weld leaves turn wool acid yellow and acorns give pinkish shades.  After a brief hammering on a hard surface,
once the flattened plants have been scraped and peeled off the cloth, their colour seems to transfer direct.  In this trial, a bluebell and some violas printed blues, celandine flowers yellow and leaves printed green.  The more juicy and fat the plant, the more colour appeared on the cloth, a thick leaf print being a solid deep green shape, while a thinner, dryer leaf had detailed tracery, but released too little sap 
to create a clear image.  The bluebell was so squashy as to lose all definition and the hawthorn leaves were so young and fragile that parts of them got mashed into the thick weave of the calico, impossible to remove.
Trying to find a balance of detail and substance in a hammer plant print, my most pleasing results came from young leaves, freshly grown this May on deciduous trees. The next photo shows an 
apple leaf and a plum leaf.  The stronger prints on the left are on the cloths which were under the back of the leaves, the patchier, paler prints on the right are on the cloths on the top surface.  A similar effect occurs when you print from leaves by simmering them wrapped in an ecobundle with iron - the reverse of the leaf gives a much clearer print.
While hammering is wearisome and noisy, the results are
gratifyingly quick, compared to other methods of plant dyeing. Here is a close up, showing my record of the best kinds of leaves I tried this spring. Pretty as the effect is, the printed cloth can't be washed and a small trial last year suggested that all the printed colours will eventually
turn brown. Thinking there must be some use for hammer prints, I sewed the calico onto cards, using scraps of plant dyed silk to look like spring blossom. When the leaf prints turn brown, they will, after all, still be leaf prints, evolving all by themselves.

9 comments:

  1. I tried the hammering a while back and was delighted with the results - for a while at least:) it's a great technique for kids, who have no patience to wait for simmering etc. - and usually they don't care about light or wash fastness. geraniums, fuchsias and crocosmia all left beautiful prints, but unfortunately despite the pre-mordanting I've not managed to make anything permanent. off to try some ice dyeing now - with procion, because I forgot to mordant material for using natural dyes.....

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    1. ooo, what is ice dyeing? I am going to try a cunning plan for 'permanent' hammer print scarves, but only over some other dyeing that didn't turn out right.

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    2. with ice dyeing you crumble up fabric (or sock blanks?), put ice over and in between the folds, scatter dye powder (works with natural dye extracts, too, but more pastel results) over - and wait until the ice is melted - it leads to very water coloury effects (best done on a base, where the liquid can drop off, or the colours will be muddied).

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  2. Interesting isn't it Fran. I tried this method on very fine cotton fibre a year or so back and it was beautiful... till I tried to wash it...it became very muddy and was totally useless as the scarf it was intended.

    Better make sure Elinor doesn't get under it and suffer the hammer's blow!!!!

    Jaki

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    1. Ah, sigh, transience is all very lovely and poignant in theory rather than practice. Elinor is away this week, sailing round the Greek islands, or was it Corfu? Wherever she went, it involved a lot of shopping for very small bikinis and sun tops.

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  3. Would steaming the damp fabric inside a wrap of saran plastic put through say a microwave, a few seconds to minutes, set it? Pre-mordant before hammering. ??? Helen

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  4. Fun I haven't done this technique in a long time now-I really enjoyed it-most of the colors will fade to brown but it is still pretty nifty-I made several herb pillows with my cloth

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    1. I did some research on this technique and the color is mostly considered a stain not a dye. I have try an alum mordant first but did not notice a difference. You definately can not put the fabric through a wash cycle. Makes into nice cards, or little pieces to hang and enjoy. I enjoyed my pillows I still have them-I added some hand embroidery around the leaves and flowers etc, added a few buttons or beads-knowing most of the colors would fade-still fun to make and use

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    2. Herb pillows are a lovely idea, you could use the leaf prints from the herbs that are inside. Thanks very much, I will enjoy trying this.

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