My work centers around flowers and gardens, so I print mostly flowers and leaves.  for the most detailed prints, items need to be very flat.  The ferns on the left got too dry without being pressed enough, you can see how curled they are.  The ferns on the right are perfect for printing.  I try to harvest enough leaves in the summer and fall, so I have them available to use later.  For butterflies and hummingbirds, I cut shapes out of foamie sheets.

Here is a stack of leaves, etc. pressed between newspapers ready for printing. During the growing season, I press leaves for at least a few hours to overnight.  They don’t need to be dry, just flat (actually dry items are harder to work with- sometimes very brittle).

Here are some pictures in sequence, of my paint board, fabric to be used, and paints ready to use.  My paint boards are 1/4″ plywood covered with heavy vinyl, and as you can see, I don’t always clean up extra paint between sessions (it does clean up great with a little sudsy water and a plastic “scrubby”, when needed).  The remaining paint is dry, and usually doesn’t transfer to the new piece of fabric. My boards are sized to handle fat quarters, or slightly larger pieces of fabric. I start with wet fabric, dunking it into a bucket of water, wring it out somewhat, and then smooth it out onto the board.  This way, my printing items can have good contact with the fabric (also, if working in an outdor breeze, the fabric “sticks” to the board until it is dry).  The pic. on the right is a set-up with my paints ready to use.  I mix my own base colors, and work with my paints watered down to about the consistancy of heavy cream- the color will be lighter, the more water you add, and I like soft, calming colors. I have been using plastic food containers with “leakproof” lids,  with great results- I can keep mixed paint in these containers for months, and if the lids are on, they usually don’t leak when tipped over. I also have a mist bottle for water, inexpensive brushes, baby wipes for hand cleaning (if there is no sink nearby), a rinse container, and a bottle of “Super Sparkle” paint by Jacquard®- to add shimmer if I want.

Now the fun begins…..I apply the paint to the fabric.  I like to see what happens when I overlap colors, so I work quickly, and sometimes it looks like I am slopping it on. If I want some sparkle, I add a metallic, pearl, or the super sparkle to the paint, or overpaint areas with it, depending upon the effect I am looking for.

To keep the paint wet longer, and to help colors run more, I spritz with water. You don’t want to get things too sloppy, or the color will weaken more than you want.

While the paint is still wet, the objects are placed right onto the wet paint. Ferns are great, and if they are not brittle, they can be bent into gentle curves. This needs to be done quickly, so the items are arranged before the drying begins.

The fern is now patted down, so it lays as tightly to the fabric as possible. Any areas that are not tight to the fabric will cause a ghostlike image.

Using salt is optional.  For this fabric, I wanted the patterning the salt causes.  This is coarse sea salt from the grocery store.

When adding salt to sunprints, keep it between the items to be printed, not on them unless you want to soften areas of the prints.

When everyting has been added to the fabric, it is placed under the lights.  The board with the fabric needs to be quite close to the lights to take full advantage of the warming of the bulbs to speed drying.  the day I did this, the temp of my room was quite cool, so drying was slower that I wanted, so I placed the board on the floor near the heat outlet of the furnace there to speed things up- I didn’t have patience.

The furnace is one where the heat blows out of the bottom, and I placed the board so it got a gentle warm breeze from it.  It worked great!  This picture shows the salt pulling the paint into neat patterns. Too direct a blast of air would blow things off the fabric.

After all the leaves, etc. are removed, and the salt brushed off, the fabric needs to be heat set.  These are the two pieces I did.  I needed these  to continue with a work in progress that I am calling my “puzzle” right now.  I started construction with the border, and am working from one corner to the other.  This is one of those pieces where I found I needed something I didn’t have, so I needed to print it.  These fabric will be used in the upper left section.

This is my WIP.  The outer border and inner border around the large sunprint, are pieces of my painted fabrics, and various ivories stitched with black thread to resemble stained glass.  The piece is “growing” from the lower right to upper left.  It covers my whole 3′x4′ cutting table. There are many sunprints being used.  I am planning to see what different ideas I can come up with to use my sunprints in different ways.

To see what I have already done with sunprints, check out my larger Sunprint Quilts, or Sunprint Mini Quilts, Galleries on my website.  Website- www.AndrusGardensQuilts.com

More finished quilts and items for sale using sunprinted fabric are available from my two shops on Artfire:
Fabric and Quilted Gift Item Studio- Andrus Gardens on Artfire
Art Quilts Studio- Andrus Gardens Quilts on Artfire