Using the Woodland Trust Ancient Tree inventory as a guide, I will be spending the following year investigating trees of significance around the UK as inspiration in my work and to inspire a curiosity in these trees with others. Simultaneously, I’ll be looking at ways to ‘green my practice’ by learning how to make my own botanical inks and pigments as well as by researching various ‘sustainable’ paints already available. This is to not only to challenge environmental issues in contemporary art, but to also physically incorporate the landscape into the works themselves.
DYCP BLOG
Willow and Amaranth Ink
Over the summer, a friend gave me a few rogue amaranth plants, which were doing well until I transplanted them from one area of the allotment to another. I was looking forward to harvesting them as an ancient grain, but…
Accidental Sunflower Ink
I recently discovered some lovely inks after soaking my sunflower seeds in brine for roasting. I left them to soak overnight and was pleasantly surprised by their brilliant pink bath. I took this accidental dye bath to the studio to…
Wild Plants & the Allotment
When I first got my allotment in the spring of 2025, I was overwhelmed with what to do with it all and spent most days clearing bramble, levelling the plot, and battling the abundance of weeds. However, the latter was…
Liquitex Bio-based Acrylic
When I saw Liquitex had come out with a new line of bio-based acrylics, I knew I had to try them out. After learning how best to work with them, I was pleasantly surprised by their rich colours and viscosity.…
Tree Pigments
Back in March, I was given the task to look for and collect Norwegian Maple buds- for their incredible yellow-making ability, by my ink-making mentor Carolyn Morton, in preparation for an upcoming zoom-laking-lesson. (Laking is the process of making a…
Church Yews of Shropshire
I had a lovely day yesterday visiting a few of the ancient Church Yews scattered across Shropshire with my friend (and ink-making mentor) Carolyn Morton. We began by consulting a lovely little artefact provided by ancient-yew.org that documents the Churchyard…