Friday, July 29, 2011

usnia and lungwort

i love this forum for all kinds of reasons. 
in the last post i mentioned dyeing with lichens. 
at catherine and bill's the trees were shedding lichens. 
usnia, what i learned before as old man's beard, and lungwort 
were actually falling out of the trees, lungwort especially.
 india asked me about the dyeing process (and the sustainability of) lungwort. 
well, it had been long since i dyed with lichens, over 20 years, but i thought 
since the yard had these gifts, i might as well try them. 
the usnia did not work in a hot bath, but the lungwort did a bit. 
ammonia brought out a little color. 
but i didn't have my casselman or memory enough to remember the bleach test. 
so we tried them anyway. 
bill taught me that usnia is a medicine plant.
 records from 1983. 
yikes!

these two were the record for a large wool singles twill shawl i dyed 
and wove in '83, and sold to a friend years later.
two pieces of lungwort, pressure printed.
 lungwort pressure printed by catherine in a teaching session. i love this technique.
and a little shibori, cotton with onion skin, 
dyed by bill (which did not photograph accurately). 
somehow, ahem, bill, this made it home in my bag...

11 comments:

  1. pressure printing, how fun! those are magnificent prints.

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  2. i could easily get hooked on pressure prints!

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  3. Dominique Cardon gives both lung wart and usnea as boiling water method. I have had good sucess with both from a similar geographical area. oh I want to know how to do pressure printing - fabulous images.

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  4. well, i dropped the ball on this--but both were sustainably harvested, anyway!

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  5. what lovely prints (ahhh its good to see that some good things emerge under pressure..... me I just seem to be crumbling under stress!)

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  6. to get purples or oranges from these lichens i have always had to use the fermentation method. what colors have you gotten from boiling?

    and what's this pressure printing??? i gotta check it out--lovely!

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  7. I love printing plants. I have a wonderful print of a large coltsfoot plant that I made years ago. I love how the structure of the plant veins is embossed in the paper. Nice - your work with lichens and lungwort....

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  8. totally in awe of those beautiful meticulous samples...

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  9. Velma just had to ask .. are you pressure printing with a press? Or some other way? I love printmaking!!

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  10. r- you are too much!
    l-i was a bit too jetlagged to think clearly
    v-pressure prints were cool, a specialty of catherine's
    i-once, i kept much better notes
    t-no, a vandercook

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