Dendritic Printing

In this example i used copper and black acrylic paint - a bit lighter on the black might have been better

The word dendritic is a way of technically describing a branching (of Cells) but for our purposes it is used to describe the texture of branching - like on bark or wood grain.

Traditionally dendritic printing was carried out by applying acrylic paint to one sheet of glass and then placing another sheet of glass on top. However to avoid the sharp edges of the glass and provide for easier separating two sheets of transparency plastic works perfectly.

The paint is applied and smoothed out over one transparency using a foam brush. A second transparency is then placed over the painted surface and the two are squished together.

Now comes the fun part. The transparencies are pulled apart slowly and as you do this you get to see the feathering pattern appear. Each transparency will give a print. You can print either fabric or paper. You will probably only get one print per transparency and will need to scrub the transparencies to get them clean to use again.

This technique is not so much an end in itself but makes great applique or background textures

Here is an example where I have used dendritic printing in the background of this collage