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.
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).
27 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Painting, Pigment, Plant Dyeing, Show-and-tell
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!
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.
08 Thursday Feb 2018
Last time I spoke to you at 8 am, it was dark as a witches’ cauldron. Now this:
Just in from my morning walk and met up with the little band of deer that spend a lot of time in my big horse paddock.
07 Tuesday Nov 2017
Posted in Chit Chat, Photography
Spectacular morning, absolutely no wind for a change and everything coated in powdered sugar. I love the crisp air of a morning like this – now I just need to introduce wool socks for my wellies and hope for more photo ops on a day when I don’t have early appointments!
22 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in Show-and-tell, Spinning, Yarn and Fiber
Tags
crafts, fiber, fiber prep, nature, nettle-along, nettles, plants, yarn
The lack of interest last year allowed me to slack off on the subject, and the nettles I gathered are in fact still on the rafters in bundles. I partially blame blogging as a difficult forum for debates and sharing, as well as my lack of expertise obviously.
As luck would have it, I’m now off the hook – Motherowl invited me to a Facebook group a little while ago, created by Allan Brown who has considerably more experience in the matter as well as a lovely video describing his process. In a very short time thousands of people have enrolled from all over the world, quite a few Danes too! So the interest is clearly there and I look forward to learning more. (even though I detest FB)
12 Friday May 2017
Posted in Chit Chat, Garden, Photography
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)
31 Monday Oct 2016
Daylight savings over, it now gets dark at 5 but for a while longer it’s easier to get up in the morning at least. When I was serious about horseriding this was a time of anguish for me, as I couldn’t make it out before dark unless I geared up around 2 pm. Out here it’s dark when the sun goes down, not even a single street lamp, so we feel the seasons more than in the city – although I remember November in CPH being decidedly glum, so perhaps not. Continue reading
Colour Cottage 