In order to be able to get colors from plants, it is important to understand that you will need to prepare your fabrics or any other surface you want to work with. The preparation process is called Mordanting and it is a crucial process that without this step almost nothing will be shown on the fabric.
The mordant is a solution that contains different metals that react with the plants. The most common is aluminum and iron. The aluminum is responsible to get bright color from the plants and the iron will help to get dark colors. The Mordant also responsible for the resistance of the colors to the light and washability.
The process contains few steps: You need to prepare the mordant solution according to a recipe with simple ingredients that you can find easily and locally whenever you located , to immerse the fabrics in the mordant solution and also to fix the mordant to the fabric so to get sharp and define prints.
In my video course “The Full Palette” I’m teaching a powerful method for mordanting – The key process for successful Botanical Printing. This course will also will give you all the skills you need to master Botanical Printing and to be able to evolve and expand your printing abilities to endless plants that will yield endless colors and shapes. To get control and to be able to choose a desire results as regards colors. To create backgrounds in many colors by extracting the dye from local plants. To use different bundling techniques for different styles.
