leaf print

Sunny days have finally come!! I've been waiting for some nice weather so that I could do some more experimenting with lumen prints as well as this crazy photosynthesis printing technique that I found at alternativephotography.com.

I had been taking some walks around campus and I found these huge cabbage-like leaves that I felt would be perfect to use for my leaf print. What you do is take a broad green leaf and place a photo positve on top of it and sandwhich them between a hard surface and some plexiglass/glass. Leave the leaf/positive sandwich out in the direct sun for at least a day (until the parts of the leaf you can see have turned a yellowish or brownish white.



I was a bit skeptical when I took my leaf inside to unveil it, it just looked like the leaf was dying or something, but when I pulled off my positive, the parts that were dark and blocked from the sun by my positive were still the dark green of the leaf and all the light areas had turned white with the bleaching of the sun. It worked!! Im not sure how the print will last, I've now sandwhich my delicate leaf inbetween some museum board, but I plan on scanning it soon.

This process is amazing yet so simple! Who would have thought you could print photographic images directly onto leaves using nothing but good ol mother nature? Anyways, this print was an experiment to see if these leaves were the proper canvas and to see if this process actually works, but I plan on doing a series of these leaf prints with some new images I've been planning. Just gotta keep praying for sunshine!

dont throw away that fogged paper!

Got fogged paper? Dont toss it, make some sweet prints!
These are some colorful prints I made with random objects I found in my kitchen . . .




My roomate showed me this really cool photographic process called lumen printing, and it's super easy to do! All you need is fogged photo paper (any kind, old works best) and some natural sunshine. (And if you wanna get fancy, a board and some plexiglas for sandwiching flat objects) You can lay or sandwich flat plants or any interesting objects you have lying around on top of your fogged paper and expose it to the sun from 30 minutes to 4 hours (iv really only done 30-60 minutes and they turned out great. Using the plexiglas to flatten your plants/flat objects on top of the paper ensures a little more detail and less blur from sun movement, but if you just lay them down you can get a softer, more abstract effect. This website has more detailed instructions as well as lots of other really cool alternative printing processes.

It really fun seeing what colors you get, all papers seem to be different. Also, it seems color changes based on the humidity and temperature of the object as well. Organic objects seem to produce a wider range of color.

have fun and waste not!

a way to use those old plastic bags!

I'm pretty excited, I finally found a new way to use plastic grocery bags! Admittedly I don't have that many now because I usually bring my own bag to the grocery store, but sometimes I forget, as do my parents. Well now I know what to do with them!

I learned how to fuse plastic bags together to create a stronger and thicker material. You can sew it, cut it into shapes . . . the possibilities are endless!
So far I've been making these cute little flower pins and hair clips. I think they are pretty cute. I pinned one to the dress I was wearing today and it really looked great! I think it would also look nice pinned to a purse or beach bag.

This is how you do it
1. lay plastic bags on top of one another and try to smooth them out as flat as possible
2. stack about 3-4 plastic bags, make sure the inked side isn't going to touch the iron, just turn it over or fold it inside out, I like to put the prettiest bags on the outside:)
3. cut of the handles and the bottom of the bags so you have one even slab
4. put a piece of wax paper (waxy side down) underneath the plastic bags (if it is up the wax paper will fuse to the bags), then I use a piece of printer paper on top
5. heat the iron to a synthetic setting, but if it is not hot enough, turn it up a bit, you kind of have to experiment, my synthetic setting was way to low, but the cotton setting was way too hot, so I settled somewhere in the middle
6. now its time to iron! keep the iron moving and don't let the iron touch the bare plastic bags (they will melt onto it), move the paper around to where you are ironing. I like to start in the middle and work my way to the edges. (also you should probably do this in a pretty well ventilated area)
7. after that side seems pretty fused and stuck together, turn it over and iron the other side
8. ta dah! now you have a plastic bag slab that you can cut up, sew or do to whatever you want!

just remember practice makes perfect, start out slow, this process is pretty easy, but there are always a few kinks to work out.
(I learned the basics through esty labs.)

I'm hoping to fuse some more tomorrow and maybe experiment with making some little change purses or makeup bags. We''ll see how it goes:)