Oxalis

If you are somewhere where the Oxalis grow wild or you are growing them in your garden you might want to print with them.
It is the oxalis time here in Israel and they just everywhere calling me to work with them. I really love the shape of the leaves. They look like butterflies and the flowers make such a nice color.

Since I already made a lot of experimentation with them this season I thought I will share my observation and discoveries.

The oxalis are here every year in the end of winter and in the beginning of spring. Their period is short and than they are disappearing as we get closer to mid spring and will be here again next year. They are consider invasive so I can collect as much as I want.

The flowers gives very bright yellow in dye bath but the stems of leaves and flowers and also the leaves themselves contain oxalic acid and instead of printing color they are actually bleaching and leave a white mark that will stay even if you over dye your piece over the print.

The leaves are bleaching on the back side of them and give different effect from the upper side which is also very pretty.

The leaves come in different sizes. Those who are hidden in the shade can become quite big and those who exposed to more sunshine will be small.

Both sides of the leaves effect. On the right the back side and on the left the upper side

In the beginning of the season the stems and leaves were bleaching very strongly and as the season went ahead the leaves start to loose they bleaching characteristics and it was obvious how they change in only one month.

This piece printed in the beginning of the season - oxalis and eucalyptus and over dyed with madder

This piece was printed a few days ago when the oxalis season is slowly going down. It is printed by Terriea Kwong when she visited me and you can recognize immediately her hand writing on this piece

Printed last week with only upper side of the leaves, Oxalis flowers and more

Same piece as the previous and another one over dyed with chestnut wood. The silver piece printed with the upper side of leaves and the chestnut piece with the back

Since you are working with natural oxalic acid from the plant, it is important to protect yourself while working. The kids in Israel like to gather them and chew the stems because of the sour taste. I never heard anyone hurt by this but still,  it will good to cook or steam your bundle in a ventilated place and when you open your bundles wear mask because you don't want to breath nothing that come up.

I'm having a lot of problems managing the graphics of my posts. Text are changing by itself to a different sizes and the alignment of photos and text also moving by themselves without having the possibility to control it. Any tips how the blogger can work better will be appreciate. I'm an Apple user. Thank you!