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
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…
The In-Between: A practice in flux
During the course of this project, I’ve been playing with making my own inks and pigments from foraged material such as pine cones, needles, acorn husks and garden/studio waste. My original goal was to create large scale works on paper…
Bark Paintings II
More bark paintings- this time made from the pulpy by-product of the oak gall ink-making process. All painted with natural pigment, including oak gall ink. And this lil guy is made from the pulpy oak gall ink-making byproduct mixed with…
Acorn Husks
…But is it pigment? Is it pigment if I say its pigment? It is a satisfyingly sludgy dark matter that spreads by brush. It dries grey on its own- like watching embers turn to ash, or paints a rich black…
Queen Elizabeth I Oak
Yesterday I ventured out to West Sussex to meet an 800 year old (possibly 1,000 year old) sessile oak tree. The Queen Elizabeth I Oak is a large sessile oak in West Sussex, England. It has a girth of 12.5–12.8 metres (41–42 ft), and is about…