Eco-dyed Leaves and Corn

A few months ago Art Clubbers and I were exploring tangling over Eco-dyed papers (papers that have been dyed with leaves and flowers). I had SEVERAL left over papers and I finally found inspiration to finish a couple that were sitting half-baked in my project box.

This first one was made over a square paper tile that was not actually Eco-dyed — I had made some “faux” eco-dyed papers stamping real leaves with watercolor paints. You can see a step-out of how this project progressed.

It was a different style of work for me, because normally I try to stay away actually following the contours of the real leaf, but I’m pretty happy with the highly stylized version of the final leaves. The piece was inked with brown Micron pen and colored with colored pencils, white charcoal and white gel pen. Here’s a close-up for you to inspect:

The second piece was developed a little differently, but also turned out pretty interesting and different than what I usually do:

It reminds me of corn! I used tangles Stikz (Laura Sponseller), Nik (Bunny Wright) and Mooka3D. The piece was made over an actual eco-dyed paper my good friend Nancy Dawes made for me. I enhanced the leaves in the paper with watercolor paints first.

The line-art was also made using brown Micron pen, but I used watercolor pencils (instead of traditional colored pencils) to enhance the shading on this, along with white charcoal pencil and white gel pen. You can see how the results are a lot less grainy. Here’s the picture again at a different angle:

You can find a lesson on how to tangle over Eco-dyed papers by visiting my lesson shop.

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