Printing with natural materials

Do you remember being taught how to print, using a cut potato, when you were at school? This childhood skill is a wonderful and creative way to keep the whole family amused on a rainy day or on longer winter evenings.

With a little ingenuity, you can create your own original designs and produce colorful and individual products for your home, yourself or your children.

Not only potatoes, but beetroot, turnips, Swedes and sugar beet, apples, mushrooms and the fresh spongy bark of trees can all be used to make printing dies. Cork, because it is porous, creates irregular but very interesting patterns; you can also use it as a base to glue little seeds to, making a star shape or other designs.

In the autumn, fallen leaves can be used as a stencil, through which the paint is applied with a brush — the results will be uneven, but very beautiful in an abstract way.

Before you attempt to print on fabric, practice on paper which is easier and cheaper for beginners, as you can use inexpensive water colors rather than special fabric dyes.

How to cut your dies
Use the largest possible potatoes or vegetables, so that you have a large enough area for your design. Cut the potato in half, using a really sharp knife, so that the edges are sharp and clearly defined. Use half a potato for each pattern and cut the design into it to a depth of 1cm (about ½in). Alternatively, you can use a biscuit cutter. Trim away the edges around the design to a little beyond the actual pattern area, you are then left with the pattern in relief; this is known as a positive die, and is slightly more difficult to make than a negative die (such as lino cuts) but easier to print with as the contours are sharper and there is less risk of getting paint where you don't want it.

Next, using a piece of dry cloth or blotting paper, mop up the moisture from the cut surface of the potato. When the surface is quite dry, you are ready to put on the paint, either with a brush or a small roller. You will need to apply a fresh coat of paint to the die every time you use it.

Some suggestions for printing on paper
You can make your very own pack of Happy Families, simply by cutting out the required number of cards and printing the various designs on them.

Personalized Christmas and birthday cards are easy to make, as are amusing invitations to a children's party. Buy plain white paper napkins and print on your own design; make decorative place setting cards for a dinner party or die-stamp your own stationery. You can make charming book marks as free presents for next Christmas, or what about a die-stamped picture book for very young children? For this you need an exercise book or a drawing pad. You could make your own illustrations of well-known stories or nursery rhymes. For instance five potato halves will make a dwarf — one potato for the face, one for the pointed hat, one for the body, one for the arms and one for the legs.

Printing on fabric
Don't attempt to print on fabric until you have had plenty of experience with paper. Fabric is more expensive, and needs special paints and consequently more care and expertise. But the results can be very rewarding and the possibilities are almost endless.

Once you have mastered the art of printing with dies made from natural materials, you can go on to using stencils and a small paint brush which needs more skill.

Suitable fabrics for printing are linen, cotton and muslin in white or pale colors. You will find them easier to manage if you wash them first to remove any dressing in the fabric.

The paints can be bought from any good handicraft shop. They are known as hygroscopic paints which mean that they absorb the moisture from the air. Although they are waterproof once applied to the fabric, they dissolve in water, so brushes can be washed out. To bond the paint to the fabric, iron the reverse side of the fabric (not the side on which you have printed the design) with a moderately hot iron. This means that you will be able to wash the garment, but use only tepid water and a gentle detergent and always wash printed garments on their own as the color may run a little in the wash.

You will also need: newspapers and old rags, blotting paper, paint brushes and felt pens in various colors, pastry cutters, a chopping board and a sharp kitchen knife, an old toothbrush and a few saucers and, if possible, a piece of glass on which to mix the paint. You may need cardboard stencils if you're more advanced.

To print
Put a thick layer of newspaper on the table; this provides a soft surface to work on and protects your table. Before you mix the paint, make guide marks with a pencil on the fabric to indicate exactly where the various patterns are going to be printed. This is very important, because once you have applied the die with the paint to the fabric there is no turning back! Always make sure you press the die well home, or the outlines will not be sharp.

The easiest way to apply the paint is to smear it evenly on a smooth surface, such as a piece of glass, and then to apply it to the die with a roller or a brush. Be careful not to splash paint beyond the outline of the cut-out die or this will cause uneven printing.

The first print is often not a great success. You may have to improve the outline of the design with a fine brush or a felt pen in the same color. But as the die gets impregnated with the paint and you get more experienced, you will find it more successful. Have small saucers at hand with the paint you need for touching up.

Below are just four simple suggestions which might inspire you to start printing on fabric. It's sensible to practice first on an old garment or a scrap of cloth, until you get your hand in.

Hostess gown
A plain nightgown in unbleached cotton forms the basis for this attractive house dress illustrated. Potatoes, beetroot and a piece of cork were all used to produce the stylized design of hearts and flowers — a perfect way to turn something old into something new and pretty.

Wall hanging
Potato printing on linen produced this very attractive wall hanging for the kitchen, the hall or even the sitting room. Pinned on board it makes a picture, perhaps for the children's room. The actual measurements of this hanging are 60cm by 84cm (2ft by 2ft 9in).

Kitchen curtains
A design printed on muslin with potato dies made these unusual kitchen curtains — an amusing way of teaching children how to count. The bold blue design has 1 fish, 2 ducks, 3 half moons, 4 hearts, and 5 clover leaves. At the bottom all the designs are shown in a jumbled mass, adding up to the figure 15.

T-shirt and child's apron
One single die used time and again produced each of these attractive results. A cut beetroot was used for the teddy bears on the child's apron — a potato die for the ducks on the mother's T-shirt. As only one die is used for each one, it is economical as well as simple to make.

These four designs, produced by amateurs in their own homes, may encourage you to try a bit of fabric printing for yourself. It's fun, and it's nice to be able to say to anyone who admires your shirt or your child's dress, "I designed and printed it myself!"

Printing with other materials
Once you have mastered die printing, you may be ready to try something more ambitious. Linocuts, woodcuts, wood engravings and batiks are all within the capabilities of the skilled amateur printer. But all these methods require specialist knowledge of both materials and tools, such as lino cutters. This is outside the scope of this book, but there are many books on the market which will give you the information you need.