14 Sunday Apr 2019
Posted in Chit Chat, Latergrams, Photography
For a while my blog brain has been really, really silent, so I’m going to treat you to collections of Instagram posts for those of you who don’t use that platform. Who knows, maybe my words will be jumpstarted along the way.
Today, spring flowers! It’s pretty cold out still, and I don’t think my vine and hydrangea can get out of winter storage until next month. But it looks pretty and full of hope.
27 Wednesday Feb 2019
Posted in Chit Chat
13 Wednesday Feb 2019
Posted in Chit Chat
It’s been 2 years since I began working and reporting on this. By early summer last year I was getting quite a bit stronger, and although I wasn’t losing any additional weight, I got perhaps a little too enthusiastic
Continue reading
10 Sunday Feb 2019
Posted in Chit Chat
You don’t know it, but I’ve actually started writing you a number of times, planned photoshoots of what I was up to but then abandoned it all mid-project because I felt it was just more of the usual stuff and so not very exciting? Does it have to be exciting? Continue reading
25 Thursday Oct 2018
Posted in Chit Chat, Farm Life, Photography
Tags
Foggy morning season (warm days, cold nights) is coming to an end and it’s just allround chilly. The woodstove AND sometimes the studio space heater are running most of the day, I’m remembering that summer should have been the season for knitting more woolen socks.
I was gifted completely new flooring for the upstairs, much needed as replacement for dingy old carpets. Problem: I now have to paint the walls first or it wouldn’t make any sense. I can’t believe yet again I put myself in a position of less studio time! I do the work in tiny little bits, but much sitting time is required as a result. Room one nearly done, two to go – with much shuffling of stuff in between since hauling everything downstairs on bendy stairs and then living in the piles for weeks would also be exhausting.
08 Monday Oct 2018
Posted in Thoughts
06 Thursday Sep 2018
Tags
I’m guessing from the usual underwhelming number of poll participants that my readers A: don’t enjoy surveys and B: I still need to find a different way of financing my interests. Duly noted! 😁 😂 🙄
03 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Garden, Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
Tags
closetohome, colour, crafts, DIY, mordant, nature, plants, primitivepaints, scruffyartsupplies
SURVEY at the bottom of this post, please cast your vote! If you are using Firefox on a desktoip computer, you may not see the polls if you have tracking protection enabled under security settings. Click the shield icon in front of the URL and choose disable protection for this site. (if you wish obviously)
Now that I have a small first collection of pigments to play with before new plants can be tested next summer (I do have some old dried things I can try too), there are multiple ways to use them. They need some kind of binder, although I suppose you could just soak them in water. Alcohol? But even watercolours have binders added to add intensity to the colour as well as make it stick to your paper.
30 Thursday Aug 2018
Rainy grey day today, a reminder that soon, soon, I’ll want to stay indoors for days on end, playing rotisserie in front of the wood stove, rushing through and not around the outside of the barn to get to my studio upstairs. Thinking in muted tones and drinking buckets of tea, layering up in wool sweaters and socks.
Only a week ago I was in the hammock on a beautiful warm, quiet day with that certain something in the air that is no longer summer – not the least an unusual gathering of birdies doing acrobatics over the garden. It took me a long while to realize that I had brought my phone for a change and that it does in fact make videos (because forget taking a still photo of the little speedsters).
13 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Garden, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
Tags
close to home, colour, country life, crafts, DIY, dyeing, mordant, nature, plants
During an investigation into using dry pigments and beeswax for painting rather than oilpaints, which I’m not enjoying, I’d been reading about making lake pigments and thought it would be fun to give it a try. These are pigments from plants as opposed to rock/earth/metal based colours, and since I already had some remedies as well as dried plant materials for dyeing wool, it wasn’t too much trouble to give it a try.
