Heliographing

I have been waiting for the right weather to try my hand at heliography. In this technique, a color wash is applied to the damp fabric, and then various objects are laid on the surface and the piece left to dry in the sun. The weather must be just right – clear sky, not too cold and no wind. Today’s weather met the mark, so out I went into the garden to paint. I learned this technique from Cindy Walters, who presented this technique in a class on craftsy.com, aka Bluprint.com. https://www.mybluprint.com/ It works because the fabric under the object will dry more slowly than the fabric exposed to the sun. With Jacquard Dye-na-flow paint, the faster it dries, the darker the color. Here are the results of today’s experiments:

First I determined my arrangement. Once the paint is laid on, you must work fast.

Here is the arrangement laid on after painting:

And here is the finished fabric after drying:

My next experiment used pebbles, marbles and rice.

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And lastly, I used a bunch of fallen pecan twig, with flowers attached.

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This was a lot of fun, and only took me about an hour. To make the color fast, I’ll wait a few days, hand wash in cold water, and then machine dry at high heat. The fabric will then be ready for whatever technique I want to try next.