Nature Print Experiments

Earlier this week I spent a very happy and productive few hours in the studio trying my hand at some nature prints. This year our little paddock is almost shoulder height in places with cow parsley and I had a fancy to try some experiments and see what I could do with some specimens of this and some grasses using black water-based printing ink. After gathering some plant material I headed back to the studio and spied a pigeon feather on the ground by the step, another possible inspiration.

Preparing a surface with acrylic paint and roller prior to printing.

I decided to prepare a coloured surface which could be set aside to dry, and that I would have a practise with the printing technique on cheaper cartridge paper before using it. I opted for a piece of Fabriano 5, a hot pressed watercolour paper, as I felt the smooth surface would help keep any definition crisp and cleaner looking. I didn't want the paint to become too dense or complicated so I opted for just two colours of acrylic paint and applied it lightly using a rubber roller, allowing plenty of white paper to remain visible. This was then set aside to dry.   

First attempt - printing from the feather
onto white cartridge paper.

I felt the potential of the feather could be more successful than the finer plant material so opted to try using this first.  I utilised an A4 sheet of laminated plastic to lay the feather on and a roller to transfer the black water-based printing ink across the feather itself. This was then gently placed on some plain white cartridge paper and a piece of cheap photocopy paper on top of this, a bit like a sandwich. I used my hand to carefully apply pressure and rub across all the areas of the feather in the hope of a good ink transfer... As you can see in the photo above I hadn't quite got enough ink across the barbs of the feather so the print is very linear. I tried a few more and then felt ready to have a go printing on the prepared coloured paper.  

This feather print was placed at the bottom of the prepared page
and I was delighted with the amount of detail.

Here is the same print but shown alongside the feather itself
plus the ink transferred onto the photocopy paper
- the ink has naturally worked itself through the barbs
leaving an additional mirror image!

A few more feather prints were made on the
Fabriano 5 prepared surface. 

After a practise on cartridge paper I finally had
a go at printing from the cow parsley.

I felt encouraged by the results of the nature printing so far. The process itself seems very straight forward with quite basic skills involved, but I can see that the design element is more difficult and necessary to make a piece of artwork that goes beyond this rudimentary level. Most important of all though - I was certainly having fun experimenting!

It was at this point, when I was taking a few more photos, that I glanced at the now messy plastic inking 'plate' and was intrigued by the impression the feather had left in the wet surface.

The imprint left by the feather in the built up
inking surface on the plastic (it looks brown here
but must just be the light catching as the ink is black in reality).

One of the grasses I had plucked in the paddock had fantastic spidery roots so I prepared another painted surface to print onto using heavyweight cartridge paper this time. I also printed some textural effects from an offcut of bubblewrap. Unfortunately the resulting print didn't really work, possibly as the root was quite fleshy and round so not much could make contact with the paper, and also the spindly bits were a bit too thin and fragile maybe?

The grass roots and the (unfortunately poor) printed result...

However undeterred I moved on to try another tactic...

Two types of grasses printed onto Bockingford 'Not' watercolour paper.

I added watercolour washes and some spatter to the print,
and found the effect quite pleasing.

By this time I was beginning to feel my energy getting low and decided it was time for a break and that I wanted to reflect on the experiment so far. Once again, as I took a few more photos, the inking 'plate' revealed an interesting array of marks and textures.

A section of the plastic inking 'plate'
showing interesting textures - an abstract image in itself.

I really enjoyed this experiment in nature printing and if you get the opportunity have a try yourself. Even if you don't have printing ink and a roller, why not see what effects are possible using acrylic, gouache or watercolour applied to your subject matter with a brush?