Back to Sunprinting and New Book Covers!

As I sit here on a dreary, cool day I am finally writing about and getting photos posted here of the first major batch of sunprinting I have done in a loonnnggg time during a hot, dry week the end of August. In this post I am going to hit a few highlights, and in a post on my Classroom Blog, I will have a more detailed post of the process.

Sunprints 8-31-10

Above is a photo of a pile of fabric from my second day of printing. In the past, I had done my sunprinting with mostly lighter colors. This time around, I wanted to give black and deep colors a try and got some great results! I did a couple of sunprints with black paint back in 2008 on just about the last day I could print that year. I used some of those prints in a black and white challenge quilt.

Forest Ferns, black & white Art Quilt by Sue Andrus

Forest Ferns

Here is the quilt I made then…. it had been traveling for a while and returned home earlier this year. Since doing this piece, I kept thinking that I wanted to play with more black paint, as the sunprints really seem to stand out much more on the black than they do with many colors vying for attention, too.

Ginkgos on Fabric finished

Here is one of the first pieces I did this session. I finally found where I had stored the Ginkgo leaves I collected last summer, and wanted to play with them. This piece has prints of Ginkgo, Maple, Nishiki Willow, Green Dragon (Arasaema) and Corydalis foliage with some Phlox florets. I love the effect of sea salt on the paint, so used that on most of my pieces, too.

Black with Feathers

This piece is the first I have done since 2006 using feathers. I just randomly layed them on the surface for an allover print. The more downy feathers make very different prints from the heavier ones. These feathers are from a package purchased at a craft store. I also “had” to add salt, too.

Black and Blue Sunprint 1

I used my Dye-Na-Flo paints fro Jacquard for this batch of prints. This paint is very thin, with high pigment load for deep colors and no plastic feel of the regular textile paints. For this one, I added some of the azure blue with the black. this piece had more Ginkgos with ferns, Little Leaf Linden (chewed by beetles), and a Green Dragon with Phlox florets. I had some trouble with my leaves curling while the paint dried, and found a way to prevent that which I explain in the leaf preserving classroom post.

Black and Red

Here is another piece with red added with the black… It gave a nice black cherry color.

Black and Green Sunprint

Here is one in green…. I played with some foamie cutouts of lizards and frogs along with the leaves and flowers.

Set of Black Book Covers

Here is what I used some of the black sunprints for. These are the first of the newest group of notebook and journal covers I have finished. I did up most of them with black & white or gray, but added some color with dyed fabric for a couple for something different. The Composition Books are available here in my Andrus Gardens Studio on ArtfireThe Mini Composition books and Memo Books are available here on Artfire.

About

I am a former textile artist and new pattern designer with a degree in horticulture, wishing to share my love of nature, flowers and gardens with everyone through my photos, sunprinted fabrics, and now pattern designs. Chronic Lyme Disease has caused major changes to the direction my life. I have to limit the amount of time spent digging in my gardens, and quilting has become more difficult. I discovered pattern design as a way to get art back into my life. I now use my gardens and photos to inspire designs that can be used on fabrics and print on demand items.

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  1. […] To see more of the fabrics I printed during this session, and what I did with some…. check out this post on my Main Blog- Back to Sunprinting and New Book Covers Set of 3 Book […]