THE ART OF ECO PRINTIING

Time to catch up on sharing my doings in the studio since last May! At year’s end, I usually try to take note of how the year has gone, what has gone on as well as off in the studio. Not gonna lie – there was no Magnum Opus: instead, much lurching from project to project, sustained in wobbly up-and-down fashion by pious resolve to carry out faithfully The Duty Of The Moment concerning the making…

Almost a year of living “covidly”. It helps me to look forward with hope if I look back show myself how I have actually made it to Spring 2021 at last. I took a lot of photos. I think I will just let the pictures remind us both, Reader and Author, that love of handwork and creativity have not been cancelled, and in fact, these two may have been a main means of spiritual and psychological…

Antony Gormley recently wrote about “affordances”- the things and situations that your current reality permits. He included in his idea of “affordances” the ideas as well as materials that you can bring to bear on your art: local materials, local energy ( one’s own!) and of course, the environs themselves. And naturally the affordances offered to us all in every respect, not only our art, by The…

Now where was I?

Time to catch up after almost a full year away, dear readers. So instead of lots of words, I have lots of photos- all about making dye-based inks from plants that I grow in my garden of forage here in Ottawa (Zone 4 -ish, USDA). During last year, I worked to put together a limited palette of colours that represent some of the most easily accessible plants; then to try the inks out on various…

So here as promised is my update on inkmaking from my dye stash this winter – and what a winter: over 100cm of snow so far. Nothing for it but to huddle over the dye pot and carry on making ink.

First, a little info on one of the modifiers ( or colour shifters) I used for varying the ink colours made so far with buckthorn, grape, walnut and roselle. One of the chief charms of these inks for me…

Carry on carrying on

I saw the above advice on Instagram the other day and admired its pragmatism. It also made me chuckle.

Can any of my Dear Readers relate to the “exhortation” below that I shared with an artist friend recently?

I very much need to be moved by my own exhortation today. I am on my way to a gallery with some of my stuff to show them and I am donning my armour before I go when I hear:

” No, that…

Happy new year to all my readers and welcome to new readers since last post.

Do you have plans for artmaking this year?

My art plans for 2019 are substantially the same as in 2018: Get some art work done, Wendy. Sigh. And throw out some of that stuff in the studio. Or at least use it up.

I did manage to reduce my Hallowed Dye Hoard in 2018 but there is plenty left. ( ” Dye Hoard”?…

Last time I reported on making walnut colour extract on its way to becoming ink. The walnuts have been fermenting since late summer 2015. They started out in big jars (128 fl oz), a couple of dozen green-hulled walnuts in each jar with water to cover, left to solar-soak outside until frost, then transported inside to dark studio cupboards.

Most recipes I have looked at suggest removing the…

It’s finally time to get to that benignly-neglected walnut stash that has been fermenting in a dark cupboard in my studio since the summer of 2015.

At Canadian Thanksgiving in early October, I posted a few photos here of a quick dye/ink made with a few freshly foraged green walnuts that obliged by producing the above-pictured measure of dye.

I learned from my research, however, that the best…

Bye bye, buckthorn berries

Buckthorn hedge with fall berries

No more buckthorn berries left now in mid November for making the historic paint colour, Sap Green.  I collected about four cups/ one litre of them a month ago and have been posting the results of my colour search here. Today I am wrapping up the basic buckthorn work and providing a review of what I have learned from my experiments.

Juicy blue-black buckthorn…

Making paint and ink with fall buckthorn berries

A few posts back, I shared with readers my stack of current books. One of them is by Jason Logan and is about making ink from plants he forages in the city, notably Toronto, NYC and Brooklyn. I find his book a truly charming intro to the world of foraging plants for pigments, well researched, beautifully written, and most of all, recipe-rich with luscious photographs of very arty ink marks. You…

Refund offered to folks too late to get an art kit

Just a quick word to anyone who has donated to the ART FOR AID mylar blanket programme, who did not reserve their kit through me and who now find that all the original kits (S,M, L) are gone. And furthermore, this info is especially for folks who did not manage to let me know that they had donated. If you did not let me know, I was unable to reserve a kit for you.

Colleen Gray of ART FOR AID…

My art kits have all been spoken for now! None left!

Hello everyone!

As of today, November 3 , 2018, offer to send kits to donors to ART FOR AID is closed.

So there are NO MORE kits available at this time.

I am very happy to report that the 36 art kits available last weekend for donors to the ART FOR AID mylar blanket have now gone. Thank you most sincerely to all donors!

The blanket shipment that your donations provided has now been prepared and…

Quick Update on the availability of the art kits

Dear Readers,

Well, what a great response from you on the art kits made as benefit for Art For Aid http://www.artforaid.ca. (If you are new to this topic, see my previous post)

In all, 24 out of my 36 kits have been spoken for in just one day (I posted yesterday) , so the donations for buying the mylar blankets have been rolling in! Wow. I must say I did not predict this level of interest! Thank…

Dear Readers,

Would you like to receive an art kit made up of decorated papers from my mighty stash?

You can receive an art kit as my sincere and free thank-you if you donate to Art For Aid!

Read about the work of this organisation and learn how you can donate:

artforaid.ca

My Art My Aid

I am donating my Stash-Bust art kits this winter to any of my readers who makes a small donation to help buy…

Fall leaves and blooms are calling me…my extra freezer is empty of food and will hold mostly plant material this winter. Pretty soon, Ottawa will get its first killing frost and I am ready. I have started to collect stuff for winter pigment making. Just now, however, the Coreopsis verticillata is yet fresh and green and still parading its starry little yellow flowers; C. lanceolata is also green…

I am back! I had to cut my recent “Happy Canadian Thanksgiving” post off shortish because I was having a pain of a time with an older and clunkier WP editor …now I have discovered my error and am trying this editing platform direct from WP. So far, so good!

The point is: I can never be too thankful! When I find myself a tad stuck, I can look at the inspiration in the colours of the fall fruit…