Ecodyeing, ecoprinting or botanical printing is a natural dyeing process by which the colours and shapes of leaves are transferred onto paper by boiling.
I pick leaves from my garden and local area in Surrey. Leaves are picked during the spring, summer or early autumn, as autumn leaves don’t have any colour left in them to print and evergreen leaves have a waxy coating which acts as a seal and prevents the colour transferring. Some leaves can produce different colours depending on the season, for example brambles print green when the leaves are younger, but print brown as they get older. It is important to use freshly picked leaves when ecodyeing for the best result, but leaves can be frozen while fresh for use over winter.
The first step is typically soaking paper in a mordant, such as iron or aluminium acetate. If dyeing with tea, this step is unnecessary as the tannins in the tea will act as the mordant. A mordant is used to fix the dye, to increase lightfastness and generally improves the printing results. It is therefore not crucial when dyeing on paper, (in the same way it would be on fabric) but it does improve the prints and their longevity.
Next, leaves are arranged onto a sheet of mordanted paper and another sheet laid on top. Again, leaves are placed onto this next sheet of paper and this is repeated until a stack of leaves and papers (a multi-layered leaf-paper sandwich, if you will) is formed.
The stack of papers and leaves is placed into a large pan and a heavy object (I use a brick) is placed on top to press the papers down and improve contact between leaves and paper. At this stage, other natural dyes (such as chopped up red cabbage or beetroot, black or fruit tea bags, or onion skins) can be added to the pan. The pan is then filled with water to cover the leaf-paper stack and dye matter, put on the stove, brought to the boil and left to simmer for an hour.
Once the hour is up, the pan is taken off the heat and left to cool with the paper in the water. Once everything has cooled down enough to handle, the paper is removed from the water and the leaves peeled off the paper. The sheets, now with leaf prints on, are laid flat to dry.
