crafts: plant dye

I was just watching old episodes of the BBC program Edible Garden, when I saw this and immediately thought "I need to do this. Now."

In this snippet the presenter, Alys Fowler, makes leaf prints with a friend. She says this is an old Japanese technique.

They first went out to find strong colored leaves and flowers.

They say that fleshy leaves in strong colors and shapes have the best effect.

Then get a natural fiber fabric, place the leaves in your preferred arrangement, fold the fabric over (or place another piece of fabric over), and hammer with a mallet until it looks like the color has been absorbed.

Then open the fabric and peel/rub off the excess leaf.
And you are left with beautiful patterns.

Vibrant colors and perfect patterns.

It even works with flower petals, look at those delicately preserved violets!

When the prints are totally dry, iron the material to fix the plant dye.

Are you ready to go find leaves?


*all photos taken from episode 5, originally broadcast May 5, 2010

week: July 25

holiday: adventures 3

And the adventures continue...

The longer I stay in England the more I feel I will miss my friends and the country itself so much when I go, but I also know that the longer I stay away from home, the more I will miss my friends and the USA. I'm definitely stuck in one of those ironically nice conundrums.

After playing with Mr. Tubby I came back and made peach raspberry pie for my dessert-needing friends. By the time it was out it was about 10pm. Late night pie.

I went to Cat's flat to watch Badlands. I had been looking forward to seeing it very much and it lived up to the anticipation for me :)

The view from her windows.

On Wednesday I met up with Zoe (my one-day famous theatre director friend), to see her friend Morgan in an all-men cast of Midsummer Night's Dream. She had directed this company in previous summers so was interested in how they would be without her...

Unfortuntately the English summer rose to its reputation and started pissing it down, so after sitting under umbrellas (did I mention it was outdoor theatre?) for awhile and getting ourselves suitably soaked they came on and said the show would have to end :( So while we waited for Morgan and the guys to pack up the whole stage etc we went and got drinks as big as our heads. Literally. You needed both those handles.

Secretly we both enjoyed catching up more rather than watching the theatre, but shh don't tell anyone.

Now that I've been typing I think I actually saw this slug on Monday night after seeing Tree of Life again with Vicky. This picture is almost life size...

It was raining so much last week. We put out buckets.

Thursday night we went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Very funny. And on the way we passed this cool art installation outside the National Gallery. It's supposed to bring art and nature together. This one was done after Van Gogh's paintings.

Then Friday night I went to see Dom's band (California Gypsies) play near Tottenham Court Rd. They're really good, check them out :)

friends: tubbins

hello Mr. Tubby

holiday: adventures 2

This week there were: more adventures with kids, plays, lovely friend time, museums, galleries, tubby baby, tiled pubs, and fancy dress parties.

Starting out Tuesday with a new group, we did things a bit backwards this time, and had time to add some new adventures, like Thomas Struth at the Whitechapel Gallery, and more time to explore the Tate Modern.

some bathroom graffiti at Whitechapel

very cool sculptures at the Tate, these were long rectangles of wood that the artist had cut back by following the natural knotting of the wood to uncover the branch roots again.

Taking photos of Japanese Bauhaus photography, who knew?

knees from the above

A Modigliani that brought tears to my eyes. I like his still sadness.

One of Robert's favorite photographers, John Heartfeld, who was a photomonteur for A/Z before and during the Nazi regime; he used sature to expose the deceptions of politics. This type of photo montage literally required cutting negatives, much more hands-on than today's photoshop world.

the cross becoming a swastika

his images are powerful

lying on the turbine hall floor to get a great group shot

walking down the southbank, this time the end destination for dinner was Covent Garden. The kids went off to get food and, like last time, I was invited to dinner and the theatre afterwards, where we sat up among the clouds and spent most of the time making airplane and heights jokes. It was great.

Mr tubby, aka Phoenix, aka MASSIVE! He's grown so much.... in a week? On Thursday I spent about 45 minutes dancing with him, he is quite particular about how he dances. By the end of the time I felt like I had been in the gym for a couple of hours, talk about a sack of flour! But I'm going to help out again today :)

Very cool tiles near Liverpool St, can you see where the tiles end and the painting starts?

Cat double phoning it!

And last night's fancy dress party at Zoe's, her flatmate is going away traveling with a friend... for a year! so you had to dress like a thing or person he may encounter on the journey. There was border control at the door, so Zoe and I had to make a border control hat of course.

:)