Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Sun Printing

When I ordered some more Jacquard paints from Dharma Trading (in their mini-starter sets, or what Jacquard calls Exciter packs), I also ordered a kit for sun printing from Setacolor. Then we proceeded to have mostly cloudy or even rainy weekends for almost a month. This weekend was still partly cloudy, but there was enough sun Sunday afternoon that I tried it out. I didn't have anything planned for the prints, so I just cut some ferns and leaves from the backyard.

I don't quite understand how this works. You paint the whole piece of fabric with one or more colors, press the leaves or other objects into the wet paint, and let it dry in the sun. I would expect that the fabric under the leaves to stay a brighter color and the parts in the sun to lighten up, but instead the paint migrates away from the covered area because it stays wet longer. This leaves a much lighter impression of the object, almost as if you had applied a resist first. But it is nice. I also added some salt, which makes bubbly designs.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Sue! We had a great dinner at the Barking Frog tonight. The Her Farm was not open.

    Here is how the sun printing works. The paint migrates away from the coolest, darkest place and that is why the fabric under the leaf is lightest in color. This will work in a dark basement - it will just take longer!!

    PS: We had lunch in Bothell, today.

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  2. Gerrie, Thanks for the explanation. I'm glad to know I can keep doing this in the winter!

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  3. that is so cool!! It is like the leaves you did in the cement last year. Sorry I missed talking to you in Door, heard you had been on Washington Island too. Talk to you later.

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