Plant printing takes on a new sophistication in Hand Printing From Nature.
Artist and author Laura Bethmann teaches how to use natural materials to print fabric, paper and other surfaces, and then offers projects for using those prints to decorate clothing or a home.
Bethmann helps her readers see the textures and patterns in natural objects, even such unusual sources as crumbled eggshells and half a head of cabbage. Her ideas have a contemporary flair — for example, a frame covered in translucent Thai paper and printed with a gingko-leaf design, and a lampshade covered in bark paper and printed with willow leaves.
Hand Printing From Nature is published by Storey Publishing and sells for $20.95 in wire-bound hardcover.
— Mary Beth Breckenridge
