Contemporary Artist | My Life in Trees
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 see what other colours I could get. First, I had to dissolve some gum arabic
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 Yews of Shropshire through the paintings of Rev. Edward Williams, who painted the area’s parish
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 from these experiments. However, the reality of creating enough ink or pigment to go large
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 clay, spread onto the back of a repurposed painting, then painted with natural pigment including
…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 when mixed with gum arabic. I began by following the recipe in Make Ink: A
After having a go at making pine cone ink, I saved all the waste material to create some paper/biomaterial forms (and threw in some additional studio remnants.) These were made from coffee filters, pine needle pulp, sawdust and coffee grinds. The vertical form has a canvas base that I smushed the paper/bio-pulp into. Both were
After a sloppy and amateur start last week… I feel I redeemed myself slightly with my Sequoia pine cone ink this week. I just boiled them with soda crystals. I roughly tried to follow measurements I found online and record my process. I think I was getting a little confused between making ink or pigment
Ok… I wasn’t sure I would publish this post because it’s actually so embarrassing- my absolute ignorance in the field of pigment-making. I know there’s a lot of people who have been doing this for a long time, that I feel silly even trying. It’s part of what deterred me for so long- thinking what’s
After visiting my baby Giant Sequoia in Epping Upland, I headed off to explore Epping Forest for the first time. I didn’t feel like this was the official launch of my project, rather just a little delve into my local surroundings. Therefore, I didn’t use the ATI to seek out a specific tree, but I
Last Saturday, while planning my first visit to Epping Forest, I had a little look at the Woodland Trust Ancient Tree Inventory, (ATI) and stumbled onto a Giant Sequoia living not far from me and with public access. I decided this was the perfect detour and informal launch to my project. I was actually a