• Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • About this blog
    • På dansk?
    • Indlæg på dansk
  • Shop
  • Plant Dyeing
    • Dye plant list
    • Plant yarn gallery
    • Plant Dyeing Blog
  • Yarn & Fiber
    • Weaving
    • Spinning
    • Acid Dyeing
    • Plant Dyeing
    • Knitting
    • The Nettle Page
  • Chit Chat
    • Books & reading
    • Thoughts
    • Show-and-tell
    • Links
    • Farm Life
    • Garden
    • Critters

Colour Cottage

~ little house in a field

Colour Cottage

Category Archives: Show-and-tell

Alebrijes 2 (paper mache)

25 Tuesday Jan 2022

Posted by Pia in Gallery, Sculpture, Show-and-tell

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

papermache

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

December was mostly about personal stuff for me and no new creations. So I’ll wrap up January with one last flashback post to reintroduce myself, getting us all up to speed and hopefully by now I’m working behind the scenes to bring you interesting new stuff along the way. I think that posting things after the fact rather than during, will help me be more consistent in both making and writing.

In my first post on this, meant to be a series that got buried under the doing, not writing, merely told you that I’d embarked on this new topic after doing an online class. And then I did a recap with photos about a year ago but again didn’t follow up…

Well, I’m still tinkering, but it’s actually quite time consuming as there are layers that need to dry before you can proceed, otherwise it turns into a slimy mess. Perhaps a good thing or I’d have to build a new barn to house all the creations that live in my head.

Gallery of 2021 characters since my last papermache post:

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

That painting thing

15 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by Pia in Gallery, Painting, Show-and-tell

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

art, colour

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

“Creative genius… is both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner than the average person.”
-Frank Barron

Did you know that this entire blog has always been about painting? The thing I’m most driven to explore, yet is also the most difficult for me. I’ve often pondered the concept of “path of least resistance”. Some say it’s what you should always aim for, not out of laziness but to find the way around things that achieves the most in the shortest time or with least effort, that’s when you’ve hit the sweet spot, “your thing”. Where you are meant to be. Others claim Resistance is the sign you are on the right track, that you need to push against it to get to something deeper, more meaningful. Resistance as fear of success. If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be afraid of it.

I’d like to transform the latter into the former. Too easy and I just end up getting bored and finding a new passion so I can feel the rush of learning all over again. Too much resistance and I just procrastinate (possibly by finding a new thing to learn).

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Open Studios

20 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by Pia in Chit Chat, Gallery, Painting, Shop, Show-and-tell

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

#notsobighouse, art show, challenge, commitment, community, creativity, determination, exhibition, intention, open studio

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

I promised I’d begin my “new” blog by telling you about the event I participated in this November. (photos at the end)

About 2 months before, an art community that I subscribe to suddenly decided we should all do this together, set the date for mid-November, wham. Er, um, whut? I’m not ready for that. I don’t have the space to do that. I live out in the middle of nowhere and it will be dark and cold. I don’t have enough paintings to show. They’re not good enough. I don’t want strangers in my house! I also don’t want nosy neighbours from the next village in my house. There’s not enough time! I had other plans, I just want to finish my paint project.

But in the end I enlisted anyway. Just to see what would happen, to my stress levels, my self confidence, my work speed, my sense of privacy. What happens if you don’t wait until you’re perfect and ready? If chances arrive and you don’t take them, will they come back?

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Studio update

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by Pia in Chit Chat, Show-and-tell

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

DIY, studio

I can’t believe I announced the extension of my studio more than a year ago and only now realise that I never followed through on that.

So in order to begin blogging again, I guess I might as well start where we left off. I’ve spent some time delaying this by internally debating whether to begin at the end instead, so a compromise was reached: I’ll either share willy-nilly regardless of when a thing actually happened OR this might be a one off heehaw petering out into nothing. Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Alebrijes

09 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Pia in Painting, Show-and-tell

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

alebrije, crafts, creativity, inspiration, papier maché, papir, playdate, Sculpture

I’ve been asked to begin blogging again, but all the fiber stuff has been dormant (I put up some old handspun for sale and then forgot to tell anybody…) as I’ve focused on painting, which isn’t our usual focus here, so I’ve been reluctant to share. Today however I’ll tell you about another rabbit hole I fell into. Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Lake pigments continued

03 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by Pia in Garden, Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell

≈ 20 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Plant pigment

27 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by Pia in Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

close to home, colour, crafts, DIY, garden, mordant, nature, plants, primitivepaints, scruffyartsupplies, summer

Five years ago I did a brief test of concentrated plant dye baths to see what they were like as watercolours. I didn’t add anything to it as I recall and I’m not sure where my sample is now!

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Paraphernalia

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by Pia in Painting, Show-and-tell

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

crafts, creativity, DIY, inspiration, papermaking, tools

Didn’t get ready today to show you a full version of my pigment experiment as planned, as I’ve had other things to attend to. So I thought I’d show you my latest finding, a book press which I thought could help me get water out of new paper sheets, rather than stacking cinderblocks on the floor. One way of tackling multiple projects could be doing so as efficiently as possible!

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

More on local art supplies

13 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by Pia in Garden, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell

≈ 9 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Micro foraging for art supplies

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by Pia in Chit Chat, Garden, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell, Thoughts

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

close to home, country life, creativity, inner conviction, inspiration, intention, life, seasons, summer, weather

cikorie
valmuer
petals
dock
tidseldun
jarsofseeds

It hasn’t rained here in 3 months and has been unusually hot too, so most blooming things are over and done with if they have even survived. I’m glad I didn’t make a dye garden this year, as the cost of watering would have been massive.

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Tags

acrylic acrylics alpaca appreciation art autumn berries black blogging blue brown cat cats clothing colour colourways cotton country life crafts creativity determination DIY dog dorset dyeing environment equipment exercise experimenting fabric fatigue fiber friday flow flowers forest funyarn garden gardening green greenhouse grey health hexagon hexiflat horses inner conviction inspiration intention kitten leaves life link love loom mad science merino mixed media modifier mordant natural dyeing nature nettles oak orange paint Painting pets Photography Photoshop pink plantefarvning plants procrastination purple quote reading red relax seasons silk snow solar dyeing spring studio suffolk summer sweater tapestry tools trees video weather weaving wildlife winter woad wool writing yarn yarn along yellow

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Colour Cottage
    • Join 729 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Colour Cottage
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: