Eco printing samples of Eucalyptus polyanthemos leaves

Experimenting with eco printing different eucalyptus leaves is really fun!!!!!!! 

On Tuesday at the garden club little stems of Eucalyptus polyanthemos were used in a display. The differences between juvenile and mature leaves was very noticable especially as the mature leaves were more silvery. I couldn’t help myself and made the comment about whether they would be eco printing differently.  So I was given a small branch of each to try eco printing with, with the proviso, that I bring the results to the next garden club meeting.  I will happily do this. The front stem in the photo on the left has the juvenile leaves.

My experimentation steps:

When I came home I found some scraps of wool and silk for my experiment.  So as not to confuse which leaves I used, I decided to put a sprig of juvenile leaves on the fabric and to put each pair of mature leaves separately ie not attached to a twig/stem  in any way.  I lay the leaves out on each sample.  As I wanted to know how the front and back printed I folded the fabric in half on each sample.  For both the wool and silk samples I lay a  paper towel that had been dipped in a very very weak iron water solution over one sample and lay the other sample on top because it usually this will stop any echo printing.  I rolled it over a wood dowel and tightly bundled it.  I steamed both bundles together in my steamer and then left them to sit for 48 hours.  The temptation is to unbundle straight away.  I could see colour coming through the bundles – darker in one, brighter in the other.  The wool bundle looked darker.

Wow what a surprise.  The juvenile leaves seem to have a lot of pigment that carried through the layers.  The front of the juvenile leaf gave a bright eco print. The back of juvenile leaves gave a darker eco print.  The mature leaves gave a much darker rich ecoprint.

The colours overall were richer and deeper on wool.  (Photo on left.)

Some confusion

I must say say I was a little confused as the common name referred to at the garden club was silver dollar eucalyptus.  I always thought the Eucalyptus  Cinerea was the silver dollar eucalyptus.  Luckily they also referred to its botanical name.  In Australia it is also referred to as the red box gum but in California, US it is called the silver dollar.

To see my ecoprinting with other eucalypt leaves visit my Snowy Textiles page and to see how I use it in my art visit my gallery.