Plant Ink

Inspired by my trusty Pantone swatch book - in almost daily use for the past 20 years - Plant Ink is a limited edition catalogue of natural ink samples made as part of my Garden Residency last year. It could have had an alternative title of Fifty Shades of Brown, but it’s interesting to see all the colours together in one place to appreciate the subtle differences in those shades. The book will be available for the first time at BABE (the Bristol Artist’s Book Event) this coming weekend, and then in my online shop from next week…

UPDATE: Over the moon that the whole edition of 15 copies of Plant Ink sold out over the past week, so I’m afraid it won’t be listed in my online shop. Many thanks to anyone who bought a copy!

The beginning of a new book

Back in my happy place... planning a small edition of natural ink sample books (inspired by my trusty Pantone swatch book - a graphic designer’s best friend). Surprised how a couple of the inks have become much more intense (hazel catkin and hypericum) and pleasantly surprised that only one jar has gone mouldy (oak galls)...

Week forty seven

Hapazome print of acer leaves

Recent natural ink results

Offcuts collage

And another offcuts collage

I tried a few more focused experiments with hapazome printing (hammering leaves onto fabric to create a print). As the frosts polished off both the nasturtiums and acer leaves, I caught them just in time.  The ochre fabric used for some of the acer prints was dyed with acer leaves from the same tree this time last year. I’m amazed at the detail of the leaf veins from the nasturtium leaves, and also surprised at the intensity of colour. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts.

As the colour rapidly disappears from the garden at this time of year, the appeal of making ink returns. Something very satisfying about bottling colour. There’s been a good colour range with my recent batches of ink… the black dahlia is particularly intense (and works better as an ink than as a dye). The French marigold is my favourite as it’s unusual to get a colour that is so definitively yellow (and not a shade of brown!)

Finally this week, I’ve been cutting up sheets of paper used for cleaning my rollers after recent monoprinting sessions. It’s my usual approach of rescuing paper before it gets to the recycling bin – always a joy to see random patterns and mark making emerging without thinking too hard about the end result.

Week forty four

Dye results with French Marigold flowerheads

Dye results with French Marigold foliage

French Marigold ink

October’s daily drawing challenge - 31 days of collage. The collage material was the cut-up sheets of paper I cleaned my brushes on for last month’s gouache daily drawings. So a similar colour palette, but they feel quite different. This month was definitely the most fun so far this year.

French marigolds - an astonishing amount of colour extraction. This shows the results of hot and cold dye baths of the flower heads, and then also the foliage, which I boiled up separately (lovely smell). Big thanks to my very kind neighbour Norman who donated these magic plants for dye experimentation.

I also made a tiny batch of French Marigold ink  – bottled sunshine as the winter nights draw in!

Week thirty four

Quick collage of post-it note masks used in making rubber stamp prints

Dye results from Rowan… leaves on the left and berries on the right

I’ve made my plant form drawings into a small concertina book - black hellebore ink with backdrawn paper monoprints on somerset paper. I like the combination of natural ink and monoprints and would definitely like to explore this combination further.

An unusual pop of colour in my garden residency... I’ve been carving a daily rubber stamp through August, and I’ve been masking areas off with post-it notes. I was about to clear the paper masks into the bin when I decided to stick them on a bright piece of paper instead. Instant collage gratification.

A surprising set of dye results from Rowan. The bright berries (photographed a couple of weeks ago) only gave out any bold colour onto silk and wool (see browns on the right hand photo) but the leaves - which I only boiled up as an afterthought as I only had a few - gave a wide range of ochres and browns across all the materials. Shows it’s worth splitting up plant material to get a wider range of colour - a useful lesson!

Week thirty one

Teasel dye results

Rubber stamps based on pattern of shaows on a garden chair

Really pleased with the dye results from the teasels… a blue/grey on the cotton and linen fabric and thread, and a khaki green on the yarn and woollen blanket. I’d be interested to try dyeing with them again, but maybe soaked for longer and more chopped up to see if I can get a stronger blue. I boiled the dye down to make an ink - the first attempt was a disaster as it boiled dry and then exploded all over a white wall (note to self: it stains!) But the second attempt worksed well and gave an unusual grey ink – a welcome addition to complete my sample sheet of natural ink samples.

I carved a rubber stamp based on a photo I took of shadows on a garden chair… it worked better when overprinted in a contrasting colour, or cut up into a grid collage.

A bit of a hiatus in the dyeing experiments as I need to mordant more fabric (my least favourite part of the dye process as it takes so long).

Week twenty six (halfway through!)

More early morning sketching in the front garden

Rhubarb root ink is the perfect colour match for drawing my dog, Otto

Daily drawings for June – a step outside my comfort zone with watercolours

The unscientifiaclly named dye batch ‘Jean’s Flowers (2)’

It’s been a drawing week, with a little bit of dyeing.  I had a perfect start to the weekend, early morning sketching in the front garden. They were late to the party, but the poppies and foxgloves are making up for it now. The bees are thrilled, and it was lovely to sit drawing with just the background hum of bees for company. It’s almost a form of mediation sitting , looking, and concentrating on only what’s in front of you. I even saw a poppy flower unfurl as I sat drawing, which was a real treat.

I’ve been doing a lot of drawings of my lovely dog, Otto, recently. And who knew? Ink made from rhubarb root is a perfect colour match for drawing a vizsla.

My daily drawings for June were completed this week - flowers in watercolour. Out of my comfort zone, and it’s a mixed bag of results, but I’ve learnt a lot along the way and feel a bit less intimidated by watercolour as a medium now. This also marks the halfway point of my ‘garden residency’ - it’s certainly a whole heap more colourful than it was when I started back in January...

Finally, a little bit of dyeing. I like the idea of capturing colour from something that would otherwise be thrown away. My latest dye batch is unscientifically named ‘Jean’s flowers (2)’ - made from boiling up a (dying) bouquet of flowers from a lovely neighbour. It’s a whole mix of flowers and foliage so impossible to see where the colour has been extracted from, but it extends the life of the bouquet, and it’s a nice reminder and record of a kind gesture...

Week twenty five

Posca pen drawings of viburnum flowerheads

A pair of scarlet tiger moths in the garden

I finally finished my embroidery based on the collage I made earlier in the year from a sheet of natural ink samples. I like the translation from the random nature of both the original ink splodges and cut up collage pieces into a more permanent, structured form of an embroidery. The colours of the naturally dyed embroidery thread – which I must admit to feeling a little underwhelmed about at times – really comes alive on the dark background of the linen dyed with acorn galls + iron oxide. I’m fascinated by the mark making potential of stitches, and this is something I would like to explore further.

With the move between paper and fabric in mind, I did some drawings of viburnum flowerheads with a white posca pen. They make me think of an embroidery on linen with french knots… a new project to have in the pipeline.

A couple of rather exotic visitors to the garden last week… a mating pair of scarlet tiger moths on some red valerian. Not much scarlet on show, but their markings were beautiful, and I really enjoyed drawing them with watercolour and pencil crayons.

Week twenty one

Drying strips of rhubarb skin for making cordage

Colours from purple hazel

A year of natural dyeing experiments

A digital colour palette based on scans of natural ink samples

Pleased to announce I’ve finally finished my embroidered garden map! It was hard to know when it was complete - very tempting to keep tinkering and adding features. All the fabric, thread and yarn used has been naturally dyed, mostly from plants and trees in the garden itself. A pleasing symmetry. I’ve really enjoyed working on this, and especially liked using single strands of yarn for the embroidery – this enabled me to expand the colour palette as the naturally dyed embroidery thread is a lot more limited in its range.

The rhubarb is in full flow in the garden – particularly after all the rain we’ve had this month – so I decided to strip some skin from stalks to dry for making cordage. It will be interesting to see if the pink colour lasts once it’s dried.

My natural dyeing experiments have slowed down considerably as there’s more need to be actually gardening at this time of year – I think it’s best suited to autumn and winter. I had some purple hazel leaves trimmed from stakes I used to make a sweet pea wig wam recently, so I decided to see what colour could be extracted. Nothing amazing, but a nice range of natural colour.

May 28 marked a whole year since my first natural dyeing experiment. I laid out all of my dye sample cards to mark the occasion with a photo to mark my progress. It’s been such an enjoyable rabbit hole to have fallen down, and learning through doing is always my favourite way to pick up new skills. There are precious few upsides to a global pandemic, but the increased amount of time I’ve had at home through all of the various lockdowns has afforded me the space to explore something that has fascinated me for a long time.

And finally, a digital colour palette based upon scans of my natural ink samples… I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do with this, but I’m hoping it will help me to bridge the visual gap between my analogue and digital work.

Week twenty

Blacking out the background and the addition of some collaging

Paper cuts of leaves in my garden – starting to play with the shapes in Photoshop

Natural ink drawing of a young chilli plant

More natural ink sketches from the garden

An unusual pop of colour this week thanks to a bookmaking session with the UWE Artists’ Book Club. The prompt was “These books are rubbish” – we were encouraged to make a book in an hour from materials that would otherwise be thrown away. I chose a Sarah Raven catalogue destined for the recycling bin, and folded one page down into a single sheet T book. I then coloured in all of the backgrounds with a black Sharpie pen, before collaging on a few more flowers and excerpts of the rather florid text. A spine made from another page of the catalogue holds it together as a booklet. I chose dahlias because I’m growing them for the first time this year, and I was suckered in by their bright colours in the catalogue in the depths of the last lockdown winter.

I enjoyed making some papercuts of leaves in the garden, and have scanned these in to start playing around with different colours and compositions in Photoshop. I think some of them would also make good rubber stamps, so that’s something to add to the ‘to do’ list…

The weather here in the UK is unseasonably cold at the moment, and as a result I‘m sharing my bedroom with all my young chilli plants before it’s warm enough to re-home them in the greenhouse. I noticed that they had rather dramatic silhouettes, so I drew one of them with natural ink. I also continued my quick garden sketches with white pastel resist and natural ink - it’s good to work quickly without worrying too much about the end result.

Week nineteen

Amazing mould formed on the surface of the hornbeam catkins dyebath

White carbon paper leaf rubbings (enhanced and reversed in photoshop)

Swiss cheese plant dye experiments

Another week of slower progress balancing my garden residency with work pressures. I found some ready-made artwork taking the lid off the hornbeam catkins pot of dye. I’d only left it just over a week, but an amazing lunar mould-scape had developed. I think this went off quicker than other dye batches is because the catkins weren’t gathered fresh... I swept them up from the pavement after the decay process had perhaps already kicked in.

With the knowledge that my natural inks may start to go mouldy at some point (hopefully delayed by the addition of a clove in each one) I decided to start using them in earnest. I really enjoyed making a quick set of sketches using a wax resist and three layers of ink. Working intuitively and building up layers.

An experiment of leaf rubbings with white carbon paper on black paper was a little faint, but when scanned in and levels changed in photoshop, the rubbings came to life.

Finally, my favourite dye batch yet... using trimmings from my giant Swiss cheese plant in my hall. It desperately needed pruning and I thought I may as well see what colour I could extract from the leaves. The dye bath was black and gave out a lovely range of soft greeny-greys. I’m hoping it will boil down to a good ink too...

Week seventeen

Scans of Acer leaves unfurling (once a week from the end of March)

Reconfigured grid drawing (acorn gall+ iron ink and masking fluid)

Grid drawing filled in with natural ink

Single sheet folded book of flowerpot base plasticine prints (and acrylic paint)

Carving and stamping one of the flowerpot prints to create a repeatable pattern

A week of continuing on with projects started earlier in the month… happy to complete April’s daily drawings (now one third of the way through the year - doesn’t time fly when you can’t go anywhere?!) The drawings this month were done with a ruling pen and masking fluid, then coloured with a range of natural inks. Some worked better than others, but I’d like to use these as a starting point for some embroidered drawings. Edging slowly towards using colour as the garden begins to brighten up.

I’ve been scanning buds/leaves from the Acer tree outside my studio each week since the end of March. Fascinating to see the progress of the leaes as the tree comes into full leaf. I’m going to try to remember to keep scanning monthly from now on to capture the colour changes between now and October. I made the sequence into a short animation, which you can see on my Instagram feed.

I photocopied my garden grid drawing from last week and cut each square in half to reconfigure the layout. I tried this out in monochrome with acorn gall/iron ink and then masked out a second version for natural inks. It feels like work in progress rather than a finished piece, but I’m interested to see how it’s shifting into quilty territory. This garden residency is confirming my longstanding interest in switching between paper and fabric.

I also re-visited my flowerpot base plasticine prints - making an A4 sheet of prints into a folded single sheet book (the colour is neon pink acrylic, but looks like a flat red in the photo). Frustrated by the ephemeral nature of the plasticine, I traced one of the early prints and carved it in rubber. This makes a stable block to create a repeat pattern… unexpectedly starts to feel a little like a medieval tiled pattern. Not sure the bottoms of plastic flowerpots were the original inspiration for church floors all those centuries ago!

Week sixteen

Black hellebore flowers make a lovely green dye and ink

Planning out an embroidery based on a collage of natural ink splodges

Drawing seedlings

My World Book Night 2021 entry to the Herbarium

The Herbarium on display in Bower Ashton library (photo ©Linda Parr)

Working with grids (again!) this week. I took some photos of different shapes in the garden – mostly steps and decking – and traced these off to make a masked drawing with natural ink. The ink used was rhubarb root, bramble and acorn gall (with and without iron). This feels like a starting point rather than a finished piece, so I’m looking forward to developing this further.

 I dyed with black hellebore flowers… only a small batch but enough to see that it gave the best green I’ve managed to achieve yet. It also boils down to a good ink.

I re-visited a collage made a couple of weeks back from my ink sample sheets – I isolated a section of this and have traced it off to make a small embroidery. Quite pleasing to see that a similar palette could be chosen with the naturally dyed threads. I think this will work well on linen.

In between tending to my seedlings (currently taking over the spare room, cold frame and greenhouse) I’m enjoying drawing them in a tiny coptic-bound sketchbook given to me by Eva Hejdström.

Finally, Friday was World Book Night and it was a pleasure to take part again in the annual call for entries to mark the occasion. This year a Herbarium has been created – an exhibition of literary-inspired flower illustrations in Bower Ashton library. My illustration of periwinkles was inspired by a poem called ‘A Tale’ by Edward Thomas. These flowers are my nemesis in my garden… it’s an ongoing battle to stop them swamping everything, so it was good to pause and appreciate the beautiful flowers before I start yanking them up all over again! A pdf catalogue of the Herbarium can be downloaded here. Many thanks to Sarah Bodman and Linda Parr for organising this wonderful collaboration.

Week fifteen

The pots in question

Collage of dragon leaf fern prints (with ink made from rhubarb root)

paper weaving with natural ink sample offcuts

A short film I made about my concertina books for BABE 2021

A rather less productive week as I’ve been pitched back into catching up with work. The week ended with BABE 2021 – The Lost Weekend…. an online celebration of artist’s books to replace the usual amazing event in Bristol that was due to be held this year. Not the same as a real life book fair, but a wonderful chance to take part in some collaborative projects and to watch short films made by lots of other book artists (still available to watch here). I made one about five of my concertina books – illustrating the versatility of my very favourite book format, and showing some of my processes and inspirations – you can view it here).

One of the collaborative challenges set for BABE 2021 was to photograph or trace the backs of things… I made some plasticine prints of the bottoms of flowerpots from my shed. I really liked the bold patterns, and plan to carve some rubber stamps based on these prints. I also printed the backs of some dragon leaf ferns - less successful as a print, so I cut it up and made a grid collage using masking fluid and rhubarb root ink. It starts to look like tiger fur!

Finally, some simple paper weaving using more offcuts of my natural ink samples – I’m interested to see the crossover between paper and textile work that’s evolving as part of this ‘garden residency’.

Week fourteen

Ink sample flags, labelled on the reverse

Some lovely pinks and browns from a defunct rubber plant

Making good progress on my latest garden map

Drawing more on my week off - a young apple tree from the slope in my garden

Pencil crayon sketches of Spring flowers from the garden

A relaxing week off work – although just spent at home as lockdown continues, I enjoyed having a bit more time to draw and develop some of my recent projects. I finally finished my flag book of ink samples… a few false starts, and it was a bit of a headache keeping track of the labelling, but I’m pleased with how it’s turned out. The flags are made from such heavy paper that it makes a lovely click-clack sound when opened.

I’m very happy with the colour range extracted from a recently defunct rubber plant. I made three dye baths… from the leaves, the branches and the roots. The roots were the palest colour, but the leaves and branches gave quite similar results. I’m hoping this is a more stable pink colour than those I’ve managed to extract previously from berries.

I made good progress with the latest iteration of my garden map. I cut out all the components from my stash of naturally dyed fabric, and bonded it onto calico. This is now ready to start embroidering.

Despite the unseasonably cold weather, I braved some time sat outside in the garden drawing with ink and coloured pencils. I’m determined to continue carving out a bit more time for drawing - slowing down and close observation is making me appreciate the garden so much more. Good to capture some of the Spring colour before it disappears until next year.

Week twelve

Results of dye experiments with achillea (yarrow)

More iterations of my garden map - breaking down areas into different pencil marks

Edging towards moving the garden map into stitch – selecting naturally dyed fabric to use

Typing labels for natural ink samples I’m making into a flag book

The final week of my online tapestry weaving workshop (run by Jackie Bennett)

A week of continuing with different projects. Natural dye experiments with rhubarb and achillea yielded very different colour palettes. I collected the flowerheads from the achillea last autumn, and dried them for a few months. It seemed a good time to make some dye with them as I planted out some new plants this week. I really like the soft greens, and I hope to be able to make a bigger batch later in the year. Rhubarb root was the first thing I dyed with (at the end of May last year - how quickly I’ve fallen down this particular rabbithole!) I enjoyed dyeing yarns and threads as well as fabric, and it was good to see the wider range you can get by using washing soda or wood ash to make the colour more pinky/orange, or the iron oxide which pushes it into the brown spectrum.

I did a bit more work on developing my garden map - after reducing the different areas of the garden down to pencil marks, I decided to make the jump into turning this into a stitched map. I’ve made a selection of naturally dyed cotton lawn – with the exception of a small square of red cabbage dyed fabric, this is all sourced from plants in my garden, which has a pleasing symmetry.

I’m making a flag book of my ink samples, and have been typing up labels to go on the back of the flags, so it should be a useful reference source (with the colour protected from light in a closed book format).

This week was the last of the four online weaving workshops I’ve been doing with Jackie Bennett, organised by the Bristol Folk House. I’ve really enjoyed them, and have learnt a lot, but I think that Zoom is not perhaps the best medium for learning a practical skill from scratch. I’m hoping to carry on developing what I’ve learnt though, so that eventually I can start weaving with yarn I’ve dyed myself. Good to have a end goal in mind, even if it does feel a little ambitious at this stage!

Week eleven

Map-like collage with tiny offcuts from ink sample sheet

Different greens extracted from ivy dye

Pattern overload – based on shapes from my garden map drawings

Crocosmia and Nicotiana seeds arrived from Scotland… so pleased to be part of this Seed Library project (See @Plot_55b on Instagram for more information)

A quieter week on the Garden Residency for a couple of reasons… I’m very busy with work, but also as the weather warms up and it’s been dry, a lot of my spare time has been spent either sowing seeds or preparing the garden for a new season of growing things. I need to work out how to carve out a bit more time for creating artwork too. A flurry of stamp carving pattern making based on shapes from my garden maps (using Repper software to isolate the tile shapes before carving). Some work better than others, but there are a few options worth pursuing here. Following on from my ivy dyeing experiments, I dyed larger pieces of woollen blanket to see what different greens I could get with different variables. I chopped up a piece of paper I’ve been using to test samples of homemade ink - some circular, and some made from tinier offcuts (which end up looking rather like a map). Lovely to receive some seeds from The Seed Project run by Susie Wilson and Felicity Bristow up in Scotland… I’m looking forward to growing some nicotiana and crocosmia this year.

Week ten

Truly natural colour – squezed from a squishy pelargonium stalk

Homemade ink sketches of shadows in the garden on a rare sunny day

Dye results from hazel catkins – an unexpectedly wide range of colours

More of an inky week… I’ve enjoyed using my homemade inks to draw another garden map, and also some sketches from photos of shadows in the garden on a rare sunny Spring day. It will be interesting to see if the colour will change over time. I was pruning my pelargoniums after re-potting them and noticed that a dark coloured liquid was oozing out of a particularly squishy stem - I squeezed it onto watercolour paper and was very surprised by the range of tones and intensity of colour when it dried. I was very pleased with the results of dyeing with hazel catkins - very plentiful in the garden at the moment. The colour was almost as strong on the cotton and linen as on the yarn and woollen blanket squares, and it shifted to a lovely dark brown with iron oxide. I’m guessing this indicates the presence of tannins, but botany is not my strong point. I’m going to dye a larger piece of woollen blanket as I’d like to try some embroidery with my dyed threads.

Week nine

More iterations of the garden map (whiat this doesn’t show is how very steep it is!)

Variations on a theme of brown

Cranberry dye results - the colour won’t be very stable, but I liked the range of colours

Really pleased with the greens extracted from ivy, especially on the woollen blanket squares

Experiments with aluminium foil tape printing plates

Learning new skills in making cordage and weaving

A week of recording results, mapping and learning new skills. I spent my evenings collating the dyeing results from February… a lot more browns than I realised at the time! Fortunately I’ve been dyeing with cranberry and ivy this week which gives a welcome break from the earthy colours. I liked the green of the ivy on the woollen blanket squares so much that I dyed a few more, but second results were all yellow instead of green, even after adding more ivy leaves to the dye bath. I made a start on mapping the garden - first using homemade inks, and then abstracting it down to solid black shapes and outlines. This is definitely work in progess. I tried out printing with plates made from aluminium foil… not much luck with sandwiching leaves to print as the chlorophyll squidged everywhere when it went through the press, but early results with paper shapes were encouraging. Finally, it was the last of my Place Making online workshops with Alice Fox (very sad these have come to an end, they have been very inspiring) - this week we learnt how to make cordage. I can see this could become a bit addictive, and there are so many possibilities for working with natural materials as well as fabric and paper. The following day I had my first online weaving lesson with Bristol Folk House - I really enjoyed setting up my loom, and I’m looking forward to learning some new skills that I can hopefully combine with the cordage at some point.

Week seven

Book cover of torn Somerset paper with a tracing paper wrapper

‘24.01.21’ – another snow markings book

The black paper shows off the markings well, but is maybe a bit heavy for the snowy subject matter

A tiny circular concertina book with a stitched line which follows a drawn line walk down my garden steps

Experiments with natural ink (made with red cabbage and a discarded bouquet) and masking fluid

Latest dyeing results – the multifarious browns of bramble

Feeling the gravitational pull back to making books this week… three tiny books have emerged from recent mark making work. Interesting to see how I’m still drawn to presenting work in a book format even when that’s not a conscious decision. This is process led though, which is different to my usual approach of choosing a format and then thinking of appropriate content. I’m enjoying experimenting with my natural inks and masking fluid (although I’m not sure how stable the colour will be, so probably best to scan these in to preserve them in some way). Quite a bit of dyeing going on in the background - this week’s finished results are from bramble prunings… a surprisingly broad range of browns. After a biting cold snap, the temperature has started to rise again and it’s beginning to feel like Spring is finally on its way. Hurray!