A big twist on a WOWbook lesson

I have mentioned once or twice already that I have been doing the workshops in the WOWbook series. This eco-dyeing onto paper was one of those workshops I wanted to try. For full details you will need to get the book from the d4daisy website. 

I changed the technique a little by using procion dyes spread over the paper before I sandwiched it with leaves and more paper. I expected the dye to disperse in the pot but it didn't do that at all. The colour is a lot stronger than I had anticipated but I still like the way it turned out. The paler pages were not dyed but did pick up dye from the water.

I liked the way the prints turned out so I made then into a book. I kept a couple of pages out to use for collage in the book. I also wanted to stitch on the extra pages so the back of the stitching would be hidden when I glued them into the book.  I used coloured pencils to outline the leaf prints and added shading around some of the images.

 After a couple of weeks I decided to add doodles to make the book more interesting for the viewer. I used a white pen and fineliners for the extra drawing.

 
 I also used steel wool fibers on the leaves for rusting. These became the dark dots you can see everywhere. One day, when I was pulling apart steel wool for rusting I didn't realise that little fibers were falling off the metal onto the fabric below. After I left my bundle of fabric to rust I unwrapped it all and was surprised to see little marks and dots everywhere. I liked the effect so it is something I do quite often now, when I am rusting cloth.

 Here you can see the difference in the before and after the extra drawing. I kept the colour palette consistent throughout the journal but did whatever drawing I fancied on each page.

 I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the left page here so it was one of the last ones I finished. I also used gold pen throughout the book for highlights.

 I added a few quotes about leaves to the book and also wrote the names of some of the plants I used for the prints. You can see one name in the bottom left area.

 Sometimes I used the doodles to hide areas of eco-printing that weren't as nice as I would have liked.

 I mainly used stranded embroidery thread for stitching but on a couple of pages I used a metallic gold thread, as in the crosses above.

 It was interesting to see how some plants reacted so differently to the dyeing process.

 All of the leaves on the right hand page came from the same eucalyptus plant. Some were green and some had turned red. I was surprised that the red ones dyed the paper browner than the green ones.

 There were a lot of steel wool fibres on the page on the right. I used the image to hide some of the darker areas.

 The page on the left here is one of the paler ones that didn't have dye applied to it but did still have the print of the leaves on it. I did use coloured pencils to make the blue areas darker. I always do what I think a piece needs and am never afraid to try something different. If it doesn't work the way I want,  I change it or use it in another project.

This little journal was a great piece that I could work on whenever I finished something and was looking for a small project to keep my hands busy while I planned the next thing. One of the reasons I love WOWbook so much is that it covers all sorts of mixed media and textiles. It pushes me to think of how I can adapt a technique when I don't have all the required materials to hand. The only reason I used dye here was because I didn't want to wait 3 weeks to make iron water as instructed and it was the first thing I saw when I looked in my cupboard for something else to use. I do like this technique and have since repeated it with a more diluted dye.