Print Workshop

I couldn’t find any suitable leaves or flowers to do hapa zome printing with, but I have experimented with the technique in the first lockdown, using leaves and flowers to add a pattern to a T-Shirt. I decided to focus on rubbings and print and used some paper to experiment with both techniques before creating my first pieces.

With the rubbings, I found that it was easy to get detailed transfers that showed all the veins in the leaves and looked nice. After experimenting with the rubbings, I then made a pattern using various leaves from a wreath leftover from Christmas. I used green and yellow pencil, as they are both natural colours and complement each other well.

When printing, I found that leaf prints were disappointing, and they didn’t transfer the leave shape or veins well. To solve this, I decided to use some mushrooms I had in the fridge to create different prints. I cut them up in different ways to get different patterns first and then tested them before using my favourite mushrooms to create repeat prints. I used earthy colours and tones for my prints to mimic the earthy tones in the mushrooms and used a roller to get an even coat of paint on them. I love the outcomes from the mushrooms, and the fact the gills also printed looks so cool.