Lake pigments continued

Tags

closetohome, colour, crafts, DIY, mordant, nature, plants, primitivepaints, scruffyartsupplies

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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.

Plant pigment

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!

More on local art supplies

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.

WIP Wednesday 2

Tags

colour, creativity, studio

If you’re watching this is some blog reader – please click through to the original post to see images etc! 🙂

https://piapaints.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/wip-wednesday-2/

Wordless WIP Wednesday

Tags

blogging, busybee, challenge, colour, crafts, new projects, studio

Challenge

Tags

blogging, colour, creativity, inspiration

For the next 21 days I’ll be participating in an “online community experience”, showing and talking about various aspects of painting. I’ll be writing up posts on my Paint blog as an addition to the FB group “Creative Fire”, so come on over! There is also a special Instagram tag for all the lovely images. #21daysinmyartworld

Point and shoot 3

Tags

colour, country life, flowers, garden, nature, spring, weather

Despite cold winds and rain, nature persists in getting on with spring. Last weekend was fabulous which also meant catching up on some outdoors jobs before the next storm, but I managed an ultra short “blind” photo session (as in “I can’t see a bloody thing on the display in this light”) to remind me that sweater and woodstove days will eventually be over.

Today I noticed the rape seed fields are blooming, which means I’ll be scanning the skyline soon for a very longterm project that I’ve pondered for a while but finally begun to organize at least. Too windy and chilly today however and not enough sun. Hopefully it’s still happening when my back has recovered from last weekend!

How is spring coming along in your part of the world? (or autumn, if that’s the case)

Wardrobe colouring

Tags

clothing, colour, colourways, fabric, obsessions, swatch

 

Today’s post is related to the previous one. As before I still struggle with my taste for colour, and every time I think I’ve developed a colourscheme of just 3-4 shades, I keep finding a few extras that would also go well. Some of them overlap into the next group, others are completely different. From buddhist monks’ robes to pale greens and blues, from intricate patterns to solids. My brain overloads completely with colours from nature all the time, any season. I could make swatches and sketches as a full time job and never get beyond that.

Foliage of the week

Tags

autumn, colour, leaves, seasons, trees

– garden views for you today. I try to get my butt outside every time the weather lets up, even just for a short spell. And every year in October I just go nuts clicking at leaves, once I start I can’t seem to stop, 100’s of images and nothing to do with them! These are just the raw snaps, I hope to dive deeper into work on them later. Too many varied projects going on right now, so next task will be getting all my ducks in a row.

Activities

Tags

colour, crafts, intention, life, studio, wool, yarn

Since I’ve spent so much time telling you how little I could do, I’d better counterweight that with a little progress update from the good days. Among other things I managed to grab some more photographic weather, so I now have a gazillion horse- and sunset photos to process and compile into little galleries now that it’s getting colder.