You might remember my blog post about making an anthotype (a plant-based print) using beet juice and watercolor paper. But beet juice isn't the only plant material that can be used for making photographic prints: liquid extracted from of a number of leaves, flowers, and roots will work.
For my second round of anthotypes, I chose spinach. A handful of fresh spinach leaves yielded just the right amount of liquid, which I painted onto
watercolor paper and exposed to the sun with a positive image on a
plastic transparency placed over it.
The sun acted much more quickly on the spinach than the beet juice, and within just a few hours, these prints were done. Voila!
Using chlorophyll(green pigment in spinach and most plants) makes a lot more sense than using anthocyanins. Most anthotype resources talk about using flowers and berry juices, but those take ages to develop. Chlorophyll naturally reacts with the sun and bleaches very quickly. Like with you, I discovered that when using wheatgrass juice, I am able to get finished prints in as little as 2 hours! Sure, the color isn't as pretty, but it's better than waiting days or weeks with other dyes.
ReplyDeleteDo you need to "fix" the print afterwards? I'm wondering if I hang the finished print on my wall, if ambient sunlight will continue to fade the print? Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteHi have same question..
ReplyDeleteHow to fix ? How long this print remains if we display.
Thank you.