Sun painting, part 1

Yesterday I tried a technique called sun painting (there's a bit on it here at Dharma Trading). Basically, it's solar-sensitive paint that you can put on wet fabric. Then you stick things on it to selectively block the sun-- flowers, leaves, paper cut-outs, your cat's tail-- and wait for the paint to dry. The blocked parts end up white, while the rest of the paint fixes in the sun. Iron it to set the paint against future washings, and you're done.

It's neat. I tried lots of things and found some worked better than others. I was just practicing on some cotton bandanas.

The tip on the Dharma Trading page about not using more than two colors is a sound one; it would look too busy. But I think their warning to leave no white places is unfounded. I deliberately left some unpainted areas and even draped some of the sun-blocking shapes across these areas. The effect was good.

I also discovered that liquid amber leaves look exactly like pot leaves!

As for the colors surviving the wash.... eh. They did fade a bit the first time, so I recommend being bold and bright with the paintbrush. The areas that really had deep paint color were fine, while the pale regions got even paler.

I don't think you're limited to a foam brush as they recommend, either. The paint is pretty liquid (two parts water to one part paint), but I think it could be made thicker with no ill effects. Maybe I'll try that next time. A good watercolor brush would allow for finer strokes, although it would important to make them dark enough.

Finally, I had a cool moment of synchronicity. I brought a book out to the pool area where I was sunning the bandanas because I figured it would be about as exciting as watching paint dry. And what was I reading? A book about Henrietta Leavitt, who discovered Cepheid variable stars (these enable a measure of astronomical distance based on the period and brightness of the variable star). She made this discovery... analyzing photographic plates from the Harvard Observatory!

Developing plates, developing sun paint.....

Now I'm almost ready to move on to the project I had in mind-- making a unique pillow cover for a meditation cushion. Honeysuckle flowers worked really well, and they won't be in bloom much longer. I also liked the effect from some clusters of little berries and from fern fronds. Let's see what I can cook up....