All about Bamboo

A few years ago some neighbors planted some bamboo near our shared property line, presumably as a screen. I believe it is Arundinaria gigantea, a native bamboo that can grow in the southern parts of PA. It is certainly thriving here, and it's making me a bit nervous.....I anticipate some work will be involved in keeping it in check on my side of the line.

However invasive it may turn out to be, it is lovely. I had to trim some of it back today, so I seized the opportunity to make some cyanotypes with it. I had a sample pack of treated silks from Blueprints on Fabric that I've been saving for what turned out to be just this occasion, and had a lot of fun trying them out.

Below is a photo of one of the prints in progress, under glass. You can see the reflection of my zelkova tree, with it's similarly shaped, but smaller, leaves:

And here's a finished print: And another:
I made a variety of prints, in different sizes and with different exposures, some purposely left lighter, so that I will have a lot to work with when I get to the design phase of this project. I am very pleased with all the different textures of the silks, and will be ordering more of them to work with in the future. I made a cheat sheet of samples to help me keep track of what was what: