I have dyed with birch leaves before, but I got new inspiration, since Krista Vajanto reminded me that birch leaves dye very different shades and strengths in different phases. She gave me a tip, that very early, tiny birch leaves give very strong, almost neon yellow dye – which of course I wanted to test rightaway.
I also dyed some very beautiful yarn samples, but this time I concentrated on my papers. I first boiled silver birch (Betula pendula) leaves for about an hour and let the dyebath cool with leaves in it. Then I poured the liquid in steel tray where I placed my papers to dye (without any heat). Before these in the photo I dyed some Nepalese lokta paper and shiohara kozo paper, but they actually didn’t take dye that well.
In this photo the long paper strips on the right are all Hahnemühle photo rag ultra smooth: the bright yellow was immersed for an hour and the darker ones four hours. The Fabriano Accademia drawing paper at the lower left corner and Hahnemühle Leonardo 600g/m cold pressed aquarelle paper on left top corner didn’t take dye so much. Fabriano paper has actually been toned to a very beautiful, subtle yellow, but the heavy aquarelle paper not at all.
Anthotypical 