Hapa-Zome - giving it a bash

And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping  yourself is not easily done.

Dr Seuss.

I found myself thinking of this gem of Seuss wisdom this morning.  Is it something to do with the time of year? The first flush of summer is past and the garden seems to be more work than pleasure; all dead-heading, weeding and very little harvesting - scarcely a handful of loganberries.  Sometimes, I figure, you have to "just do the work". After taking a long walk in the garden, pushing the mower, I thought that I would see if using the camera to "harvest" some shots would help to dispel the mental lethargy. It worked - the particular flowers and leaves that caught my eye reminded me of pressing flowers and from there it was a short leap to remembering watching Alys Fowler trying the craft of hapa-zome a way of creating leaf and flower prints using their own pigments by hammering them. I gathered some leaves and flowers to try it myself.

To make a start, I gathered together:
A hammer - oh yes, this would be fun
A thick board
Some  natural fibre fabric - unbleached calico 100% cotton.
Some thick card
The flowers and leaves

The basic technique is very easy. Simply spread the cloth over the board, lay the flowers and leaves on the fabric, cover with the card and hammer over it all. When you feel that you have  thoroughly bashed over all the vegetation, carefully lift away the card and see what has happened. Prepare to be delighted. Even on the first try, I was intrigued with how much of the pigment was transferred by this simple activity. I had tried making plant dyes with some successful results but nothing as instant as this.

It is such a revelation but there are some things I learned along the way. Some so obvious that I needed to have another go immediately.

1. Choose fairly thin petals and leaves. Thicker ones tend to have a lot of sap or juice which dilutes the pigment. 
2. Cut away any parts on the back of the flowers that are not going to imprint. (See below) These only bring a vaguely green squish to the end results.Not good.
3. Make sure you hammer evenly all over the leaves and petals. It will help to have something see through to hammer over. Although I did get a second imprint on the card as well I think I would be prepared to sacrifice that for a good image on the fabric. 
4. As far as possible try not to let the leaves and petals move during the process - so trim off any stems or stalks that stick up as this can make them move a little when they are hit and also keep peeking to check on progress to the absolute minimum. I was amazed at the lovely crisp outlines you can get if everything stays in one place.
5. Make sure all the plant material is absolutely dry.
6. Try putting the leaves with pronounced veins with the backs closest to the fabric. The purple sage leaves I used worked best this way as the veins gave them texture. The centre one was upper side down and that just came out as a splodge.

Some things change colour a little too - understandably the plant materials emerge bruised by the process and I found some of the pink flowers showed it and were more mauve than the original. The blue star shaped campanula was a great success and came up with crisp edges. As did the little yellow weed flowers. I don't know the name of this plant - I think it is some kind of potentilla - but I have a different name for it entirely (a name I am not prepared to put into print)  when I am trying to eradicate its thuggish invasion of almost every bed and border. I did notice the other day as I managed to dig up some of the long tap roots that they are a conspicuous red and might yield an interesting dye.

So another day another try, this time using flowers and leaves from herb robert. Yes, it is something of a weed here but it does have exquisitely shaped leaves which turn red. And the little pink  flowers are pretty. I trimmed back the tube behind the petals and of course this makes all the petals fall apart so it is a good idea to set the flowers in place before cutting the tube away - my botanical knowledge falls way short of knowing what this part of the flower is properly called. I found a pair of tweezers came in handy to rearrange the tiny petals.

This time I used a layer of greaseproof paper underneath the card so that I could lift the card off without disturbing the leaves. I found that I could also hammer on the greaseproof paper without the card.

Good results I thought - funny how the red leaves worked well but the green ones were a waste really.
My mind is starting to buzz now with ideas for using the prints and for experimenting with other plants and other fabrics. There is further blog inspiration for this technique here and here.
Go on, give it a bash - pun most decidedly intended! I am sure Dr Seuss would have approved of  it as a strategy for un-slumping.