Printing with Nature

Hello Friends of the Press,

Last year we published Reverie, a little book poems that featured illustrations printed from grasses growing in our field. I loved the process and the look of these nature prints (which I first learned about from John Ryder's wonderful book Printing for Pleasure), and they came immediately to mind when I began to think about what illustrations might accompany our newest production ~ Wind Intervals, a chapbook of poems by Jeff Schwaner.

Collected and dried last autumn from the tree outside our print shop door, I had a stash of beautiful Japanese maple leaves under weights in a corner of the shop. Many of Jeff's poems include the presence and imagery of trees, including maples. It seemed like a perfect match.

So, this past week I began adding prints made directly from these dried leaves to the pages of Wind Intervals. Here's a little peek at the process ~ enjoy!

The first challenge was to find the right shade of burgundy to do justice to the lovely color of these Japanese maple leaves. I eventually mixed together a couple of different reds to get a close match.

After rolling out the ink (which looks brighter & redder here than it prints), I placed the leaves onto the ink plate. Next, I placed a piece of thin copy paper over the leaves and carefully rubbed over them with my hand, transferring the ink to the leaves.

When I peeled back the copy paper, the underside had this cool pattern. The leaves on the ink plate were now ready to be transferred to the book page.

Next, with a pair of tweezers I carefully picked up a leaf by its stem from the ink plate and placed it where I wanted on the book page. Sometimes I overlapped leaves, which created a sense of depth in the final print.

This is my very first printing press, a Poco "0" made in Chicago around 1910 and designed to proof newspaper texts and images. It's a perfect little press for nature printing. When I had the leaves where I wanted on the book page, I placed an over sheet over the leaves and rolled everything under the cylinder.

And voila! A page with lovely Japanese maple leaf prints. 

Each leaf, though very delicate, was able to be used for anywhere from 30 to 60 prints. When it became too degraded to print well anymore, I took it outside and gave it back, with thanks, to the earth and sunshine.