Yesterday I discovered eco printing as an art technique which I loved. Basically you print on paper from real flowers you may have collected from your garden or a friendly local flower farm. The act of going out into nature and collecting the flowers is therapeutic in itself – flowers are beautiful and they hold a healing energy all of their own. You can spend time with the flowers communing with them and asking their permission to be part of your sacred art project – selecting the ones with the most vibrant colours and interesting shapes to be part of your page. Flowers, like all plants communicate something of their essence to us in their scent and vibration and its usually all positive and uplifting – a real peaceable break from the cares of mundane life or the latest sad happenings in the news. Nature provides, she has all we need to create beauty, harmony and abundance in our lives.

Once the flowers have been selected then you can place them in water ready. Then the paper needs to be prepared by soaking trimmed sheets of heavy duty watercolour paper in soya milk in a tray for about 30 minutes. Then you prepare your workstation, 2 kitchen tiles, a piece of cloth cut to the size of the 2 tiles when their placed side by side and the paper that also fits the dimensions and length of the two tiles.

First you place the 2 tiles down side by side, then the cloth goes on top of that, and then the paper on top of the cloth in layers. You then fold the piece of paper to match the size of one tile and then open it out again ready to receive the flowers. You place the flowers, leaves, petals (nothing too bulky) on the paper in a design. Then you fold the piece of paper with the cloth around it, place the tiles around that also in a “sandwich” – then clip the tile, cloth paper flower sandwich together.

You then place them in a cauldron with a little water in the bottom on a medium heat to steam them for around 30 minutes also. Once the steaming has finished you can open your tile sandwhich and the print is revealed inside. Pealing off the petals and leaves, the paper should hold an impression of the flower and leaves.

Then once all the debris is removed and its dried some – you can then start to go over the design in pen to pick out interesting details, black fineliner or posca pen is ideal for this

These peices of paper are ideal for cards or framed on their own – but if you want to make pattern images for digital printing, like the images I have made shown in this blog, then you can take a photo of your work, then trim the photo so its cropped clean, then use something called a layout app to make a mirrored repeat pattern of your image. This is then ready to print onto fabric to make scarfs or cushion covers of whatever your imagination can set sight on.

The petals and leaves can be collected and dried for other projects or composted – making this a truly eco friendly and beautiful project.