In the past post "
Strawberry Project" I mentioned about strawberry dye on paper. I finally tried it and it turned out to be a beautiful hue. I found simple natural dye methods on
some Japanese blogs so I referred
them. Although all the method were for fabrics, I gave a try on watercolor papers. For fabrics, you need a container to soak in, but for watercolor papers, I just used a paint brush to color the papers.
First, I pureed a handful of strawberry (used uneatable quality) in a small bowl.
Then I squeezed a slice of lemon juice in the bowl and mixed together to preserve the strawberry color.
Several strokes were needed on one spot to keep the color vivid.
The sweet strawberry scent was filling the room while painting, and even after the dye dried out.
This one shows the difference of amount of strokes. The top got more strokes than the bottom. The bright color of strawberry transformed into pale pink after dried.
This one was supposed to be hibiscuses.
The petals were drawn with the strawberry dye and I added newspaper pieces to complete the picture. The Kanji character means August.
This is my first "mixed media: strawberry dye and hand-torn newspaper" art. Not too bad for the first try!?
Happy August!
