Contemporary Artist | My Life in Trees
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. Currently marketed as part of the ‘heavy-bodied’ acrylics, they almost require their own category- as
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 dried pigment from ink). At the time, the budding Norwegian Maples were apparently abundant where
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
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 800–1,000 years old. In June 2002, The Tree Council designated the Queen Elizabeth I Oak, one of
Part of my DYCP research is to find and test existing ‘sustainable’ paints and when I came across Placrylic, I immediately purchased their starter set, excited by the idea of plant-based sustainable acrylics. I admit, however, that I didn’t look too deeply at the website- I just kind of went for it. Yep, looks great,
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
My first attempt at making oak gall ink. Something I’ve wanted to try for ages. Knowing my parents go on walks nearly every day back home in California, I asked them (half-jokingly) to collect oak galls, acorn caps and wild grape vine for me. And boy, did they come through! Only took them a couple