the great saffron experiment, part I

Today I began the Great Saffron Experiment. It will be great if it works.
My intent is to use saffron as an anthotype emulsion. This afternoon was primarily preparing the liquid which will be applied to paper as multiple coats to build up the color.
Below are pictures of the process.

dried saffron

saffron with hot water

saffron with hot water, mortar, pestle and tea kettle

regrinding the saffron before adding more hot water

cloudy saffron suspension

As best as I can remember:

• I used about two teaspoons worth of saffron. A little goes a long way.
• Added hot water little by little, mortar and pestling (I hope that is the verb) the saffron leaves as they absorbed water.
• Pulled off the liquid from round one of crushing the saffron in hot water using a transfer pipette. Filtered it through the mesh filter. I had about 70 cc of liquid at this point.
• Re-pestled the saffron. At this point it was effectively a saffron poultice.
• Added more liquid. Continued to mortar and pestle.
• Pulled off the additional liquid and filtered it through the mesh filter.
• Just as an additional experiment, I added a few cc's of Everclear (alcohol) to the remaining poultice to see if I could leach out a little more color. It helped a little but probably added to the cloudiness of the collected liquid.

From the pictures you should notice that I strained the hot liquid through a piece of a gold mesh coffee filter. The collected liquid did have a suspension which was too fine for the coffee filter but it did settle down to the bottom of the glass jar after a few minutes.