Week thirty eight

Buddleia dye results

Colourful brush cleaning from my September daily drawings (gouache this month)

My garden residency was on tour last week as I de-camped to Norfolk for the week. A new garden with lots of different plants and flowers to draw. So lovely to have a change of scene, and a long overdue chance to get reacquainted with the sea...

I dyed some cotton lawn with buddleia flowers last summer, but I was keen to see how the colour would turn out across a wider range of materials this year. It was worth the wait... some lovely vibrant yellows and strong greys. The two yellow yarns and woollen blanket swatches show the difference between a cold and hot dye bath. More than a hint of bumblebee about this colour palette... 🐝

Cleaning my brushes after my daily drawings (gouache this month) I’ve been building up vibrant stripes of colour - an appropriate colour palette for a gloriously sunny week in Norfolk. I’m hoping to use these painted swatches as collage material for next month’s daily drawings.

Week thirty five

The aforementioned rubber stamps!

An embroidered panel of naturally dyed wool

Limbering up for a month of daily drawings of gouache paintings

August has come to a close, and this month’s daily drawings are complete… all rubber stamps. This one has proved to be a little more time consuming, but they were mostly each completed within 15 minutes. Although it’s a technique I’m pretty familiar with, it’s still been a good learning exercise. Working out how best to simplify shapes, deal with negative space and incorporate fine details for stalks or petal markings. I now have a good stash of flowery rubber stamps that I can hopefully use in future projects.

Like the month of wax crayons, there’s a cohesion to the finished sheet of rubber stamps that comes from working with a set colour palette. I’m looking forward to mixing my own colours again next month though, when I’ll be using gouache for my daily drawings. I had a practice by doing a quick painting of a vase of flowers, and I think I’ll try to incorporate some coloured paper backgrounds to my daily drawing grid to make the inclusion of white flowers more possible.

As the month ended, I also finished a small embroidered panel I’ve been working on using naturally dyed yarn. I’m enjoying discovering the potential of embroidering with wool, relying on texture to build up a surface. It’s been a real pleasure choosing the colours and to see how they look together and interact with each other. There have been times over the past year when it’s felt like most of my dye results yield some form of ochre or brown, but this is encouraging proof that the palette is much wider than that.

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 three

I finished my small embroidery based on drawings of viburnum flowerheads. Split stitch and French knots on linen. The third ‘tree’ is perhaps a bit light in tone, but it’s not an exact art when using naturally dyed thread. The linen was dyed with hypericum leaves (from under the viburnum tree in the garden) and the threads were dyed with sloes, bramble branches and Swiss cheese plant leaves. The first two from the garden, the last one from the house.

With a similar colour palette, I’ve been refining my plant form drawings… using India ink and teasel ink. I think these would work well in a small concertina book - all grids seem to point back to folded books at some point!

Common sorrel collected from a local field was one of the first plants I dyed with last summer, but I only dyed cotton lawn then, and had to wait another 12 months for the flowerheads to die back ready to be picked again. It was worth the wait - it’s a lovely, rich range of terracottas and browns, and the colour seems to take well across all materials. The woollen blanket has ended up the exact colour of my dog, so I may dye a larger piece as I like the idea of embroidering a line drawing of him.

Week thirty two

First set of plant form ink drawings with a Chinese brush

Second set of plant form ink drawings with a Chinese brush

Back of an envelope simplifying of plant form drawings

August is a very busy month with work, so time is limited for the garden residency right now. I’ve been dyeing with common sorrel this week (results to be photographed next week) and have been preparing rowan berries and leaves for the dye pot. I was struck by the vibrant colour of the berries in the pan, especially alongside a pink salvia in a pot on the table at the same time. Eye popping!

Following an excellent online Domestika course with Jesús Cisneros, I have been making drawings of plant forms from the garden using ink and a Chinese brush. It’s a good technique for simplifying shapes, and I took these initial drawings to work out (on the back of an envelope) how they could be simplified further still. These two colour drawings could be taken in a few different directions next - Monoprints? Embroidery? Rubber stamps? It’s good to have options.

Week thirty

Teasels soaking ready to make into a dye

Scans of hydrangea petal skeletons collected from the garden earlier in the year

The first tree in my embroidery based on drawings of Viburnum flowerbuds

July comes to a close, and my sheet of daily drawings for the month is completed. I chose wax pastels as I haven’t used them very much before. With hindsight, this was a bit of a chunky medium to use for such a small scale… but this made me simplify my style and concentrate on bold shapes. Some worked better than others, but I am pleased with how coherent they look as a collection of drawings - I think it helps filling each square instea of leaving white space around the drawing. Next month - rubber stamps (back in my comfort zone).

Teasels I’ve grown from seed last year have turned into giants at the bottom of the garden (some around 3m tall!) They looked rather splendid and statuesques for a short period of time, but then after heavy rain and winds most of them have collapsed. So, in the spirit of ‘waste not want not’, I chopped up some of the flower heads from the fallen plants. An initial soak in hot water has already yielded an interesting bluey-green colour, so I have high hopes for the dye and ink that can be made from these casualties.

I finally got around to scanning some hydrangea petal skeletons I collected from the garden back in early spring. I was fascinated to see how much they looked like trees (or coral as suggested on Instagram). I’ve printed these out onto acetate and hope to use them to make a cyanotype when the sunshine makes a return visit. On the same them of ‘things that aren’t trees but look like they are’ I started my embroidery based upon drawings of Viburnum flowerheads I made last month. The linen is dyed with Hypericum and the thread is dyed with Sloes (+ iron oxide) - both from the garden. This is unusually neat stitching for me - I realised that wearing two pairs of specs allowed me to see detail much better!

Week twenty nine

Cyanotypes of acer, passion flower and cosmos leaves

Early morning sketching in the front garden

Hand drawn map of the veg patch

The wide range of colour from Herb-robert

In the sprit of using this year of my ‘garden residency’ to try new techniques, I’ve dipped my toe in the chemical waters of cyanotypes. Making the most of the recent heatwave in the UK, I made some solar prints with leaves I’ve recently liberated from my flower press. Results were mixed, but it was an interesting introduction to the process, and I’d definitely like to try more.

Two types of ink drawing this week… one using a bamboo dip pen sat in my front garden very early on a sunday morning, and the other a stylised map of my veg patch (minus weeds and slug damage).

This week’s dye results were from the excellently named Herb-robert – a large weed that’s been growing out of the wall in the veg patch. A surprisingly strong colour for such a delicate plant, and a lovely range across all the different materials. Encouraged to try dyeing with more weeds now…

Week twenty eight

Mark making with new Chinese brushes

Dye batch from a large Cordyline flower

A week of mark making and a little bit of dyeing. I’ve been experimenting with using some new Chinese brushes - quick sketches in the veg patch and also a drawing of a tree peony leaf. I also tried a new approach for monoprinting… painting black oil paint onto a piece of paper and then drawing on the back of the sheet as a transfer. Much quicker than inking up a perspex sheet, and I like the marks of the brushstrokes that are transferred to the printed drawing. I made some prints into a concertina book, but it’s just a prototype as the paper was a little thin and cockled when glued together.

My latest dye experiment was with a large Cordyline flower from the garden, which I chopped up as soon as it had finished flowering. I had high hopes as a lot of colour was immediately extracted when I covered it with boiling water, but the end results are a little bit underwhelming… some nice buttery colours on protein fibres, but on the cotton and linen there was very little colour at all. It does however win the coveted title of stinkiest dye bath so far… definitely one for boiling outside, and a heady whiff of men’s urinals drifted across the gardens of Coombe Dingle when this was on the hob!

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 four

Another digital collage using my natural ink colour palette and paper cut shapes

Quick natural ink sketches of foliage

A bright pop of colour to start the week – a lovely, vibrant range of yellow-y greens from carrot tops. Not exactly from the garden, but from the weekly veg box delivery (I’ve been collecting a stash of them in the freezer for the past few weeks). I dyed with silk thread and lambswool for the first time - both take on the colour really well.

Another digital collage experiment using my natural ink colour palette and paper cut shapes. Really interested to see how the colours interact with one another, and also how they work as semi-transparent overlays.

I did some more quick layered sketches with natural ink and masking fluid - unintentionally looking like painted easter eggs! These ink drawings look better after they’ve dried as the colour intensifies and the layers look more clearly defined.

Week twenty three

Rhubarb on rhubarb

Daily watercolour sketches – purple Salvia

Another low production week – busy with work, under the weather with a cold still and spending lots of time watering the garden in this hot, dry spell. But still got a few things done. I enjoyed starting to use my new palette of colours based on natural ink swatches – I created a digital collage using papercut shapes and a rollered texture in Photoshop. Interesting to see how well the colours sit together, and they work well as semi-transparent overlays.

I used a short length of cordage made from rhubarb skin to add as a couched layer to a panel made from woolen blanket dyed with rhubarb root, and also layers of embroidery thread, linen and yarn dyed in the same dye batch. I’m not that pleased with the composition (it’s meant to be based on rhubarb leaves but it looks like hearts or a map) but I like the idea of making stitched panels linked back to the original plant source of the colour. This one needs a bit more thought…

I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone this month for my daily drawings – using watercolour (a medium I am not experienced with using). It’s finally a good opportunity to record some of the colour in the garden, which has finally started to bloom over the past week. Everything seems about a fortnight behind this year, but many plants are now catching up quickly. So lovely to have some sunshine to accompany the colour after such a cold, wet Spring. Salvias are one of my favourite flowers, and the bees are going crazy for them at the moment too…

Week twenty two

Work in progress - an embroidery based on a collage I made of natural ink samples

Natural dye results from lavender prunings

A lower production week as I’ve been a little under the weather with a cold (rather frustrating just as the sun finally makes an appearance). I completed my daily drawings for the month of May - coloured pencil drawings of leaves. I delayed moving into full-on full colour as the cold Spring we’ve been having here in the UK has meant that a lot of flowers are much later to come out this year. So greens it has been - I’ve really enjoyed looking at the different shapes of leaves and tones of greens… always a relaxing way to begin the day.

I’ve made a good start on a new embroidery - this one is based on a collage I made earlier in the year from a test sheet of natural ink samples. I’ve enjoyed translating the uneven shapes of the ink blobs into stitch, and matching the colours of naturally dyed threads to create a similar palette. The colours are soft but they really do pop on this dark grey lined (dyed with acorn galls and iron).

Finally, another set of dye results from using prunings of lavender bushes from the edge of my veg patch. The branches were dead, so I wasn’t sure what (if any) colour could be extracted. It won’t set the world on fire, but I was surprised how much colour was there, especially on the yarn and woollen blanket squares.

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 eighteen

Dyeing with nettle tops

Dyeing with hornbeam catkins

Using up leftover ink on a leaf pattern

Not so much time for creating at the moment as most of my spare time is being spent tending to seedlings, potting and working in the garden. I’m making good progress on my stitched map of the garden… I decided to use single strands of yarn for the trees and shrubs as I have a much wider range of greens to play with from my naturally dyed stash. The trickiest thing is knowing when to stop - what detail to add and what to leave out. Definitely nearly there though.

Two very different dyebaths this week - soft greens from nettle tops, and yellows/greys from hornbeam catkins (not from the garden but swept up from the pavement at the end of my road).

Quite fun using up some ink from a job to make repeat shapes, turned into leaves with a dip pen once dry. All roads lead back to drawing plants in some form or another at the moment!

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 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 thirteen

My sheet of natural ink samples is filling up (with a lot of yellows and browns)…

Practising making cordage from brown paper packaging

Playing around with my garden map pattern stamps in colour

My completed sheet of daily drawings from March

A bit of a rounding up week at the end of the month. I was quite relieved to complete my daily drawings… turns out the tonal pencil sketches are a little out of my comfort zone. It was good to challenge myself though, and a perfect month for slowing down and really looking at all the changes in the garden - a transformation from the start of the month to the end in terms of plant growth. I had a bit of a play with the garden map pattern rubber stamps I made - introducing colour overlays, which gives them a bit more potential interest. This definitely needs further investigation. I continued making cordage from brown paper packaging (during Zoom meetings, off-camera!) and seem to be slowly getting the hang of it through repetition. My ink sample sheet is filling up, but I’ve realised how very many yellows and browns I’ve been creating. Finally, I submitted a collage of ink sample off-cuts for the call-out for BABE2021 to #redesignarainbow set by Angie Butler… not quite a rainbow but certainly a spectrum of natural colour.