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 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 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 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 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 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!

Week six

Playing around with homemade inks - thank goodness for the blue of the red cabbage to break all those browns up a bit!

Christmas bouquet dyeing experiments (1)

Christmas bouquet dyeing experiments (2)

Drawing and traced outline for a woodcut print

Starting to carve the woodcut print

White posca pen on tracing paper to record snow patterns from bitmapped photos taken last month

A work-in-progress kind of a week… I’m stitching on top of a small collage of naturally dyed fabric scraps (see top picture) whilst hibernating in the evenings. I’ve been playing with my homemade inks to see how the colours look alongside each other (bit of a crossover with my stitching trials). I’ve catalogued the results of (non-scientific) dye experiments with Christmas bouquets of flowers donated by a neighbour once they were past their best. There was more colour in them than I expected. I’ve been carving a woodcut - my first in years - based on a sketch I did whilst taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of last month… looking forward to doing some printmaking again. Finally, I used some photos I took in the brief snow we had in Bristol on 24 January as a basis for some white posca pen drawings onto tracing paper. I’m planning to make these into a small book (what else?)

Week five

The cover of my single sheet book of line walks

Line walks in my garden - one a day for seven days, using different drawing materials

Dye results from Christmas tree branches - lovely chocolatey browns

More Christmas leftovers - yew sprigs and holly berries from a friend’s festive table centrepiece

A ladder of dyed thread samples – these are all the colours from January’s experiments

A pleasing symmetry - a tiny woven panel of yarn dyed with oak twigs, sewn back onto one of the twigs from the same tree

My January sheet of daily drawings… last month was silhouettes, this month will be line drawings

A week of consolidation… I’ve collated all my artwork from January into my large sketchbook so I have a record of the year as it unfolds. I’ve set myself a challenge within the ‘residency’ to complete a small drawing every day - the final image above shows the completed sheet for January. I started off simple with ink silhouettes to get me into the drawing habit, and I’m moving onto line drawings this month. I’m hoping that the silhouettes will be useful source material for rubber stamps, stencils and patterns. It’s been an interesting exercise in looking more closely at plants, and it’s good to start each day with a drawing.

At the end of January I completed a drawn line walking down the garden each day for a week - they became more interesting when overlaid. I made this into a single sheet book - it doesn’t exactly follow the path of the journey down the garden the way it’s cut and folded, but it’s a more compact way of containing the visual record.

Some more dyeing experiments have been dried and catalogued – Christmas tree branches, yew sprigs and holly berries. Mixed results, but I really like the range of chocolate brown tones from the Christmas tree. It was also good to see January’s dyed thread experiments all together on a sample card. A much wider range of colours than I had realised.

Finally, a tiny panel of woven yarn (created on a card pin loom) dyed with oak twigs – I sewed it onto an oak twig from the same tree, which seemed to be the most appropriate way of displaying something so small. I’d like to make more of these, linking the dyed yarn back to the trees of origin.

Week three

Collaging with offcuts from paper used to test homemade ink samples

Speed drawing exercise (herb bed in my garden)

Collage made from speed drawing (above)

Red cabbage ink - pink when it hits the paper, but teal 10 minutes later. Magic!

Starting to catalogue and record results for my natural dyeing experiments.

A productive week in spite of the rain and being busy with design work. I’m starting to get into a habit of making artwork first thing in the morning before work and then doing more mindful/mindless tasks (see dye sample cards above) in the evenings when watching TV. I’ve really enjoyed starting to use my inks - the speed drawing used mint ink - and also creating collages with offcuts. I’m always happiest with the most random results. It was fun making and weaving on a tiny pin loom, and I’m keen to explore this further to make samples of the dyed yarn. Good to finally start to catalogue my dye samples… very pleasing to make the swatch cards, and I think they will be a really useful record.

Week two

Samples of homemade ink (some more successful than others)

Pattern play with a rubber stamp carved from an ink drawing of periwinkle leaves

Quick ink sketches of rare splashes of colour in the garden at the moment

Red cabbage dye experiments - purple fades to lovely blues and teals

A grey and dreary week here in the UK, but I’ve busied myself making new batches of colour – both for dyeing fabric, thread and yarn, and making ink. I’ve had a few false starts with the ink making – pans boiling dry, or the colour being too weak or crystallising, but I finally seem to be getting the hang of it. Fun to see them all together on a sample sheet… what felt like a lot of non-descript browns have more subtlety than I realised at first glance. I enjoyed making a pattern stamp based on one of my daily ink silhouette drawings, and I’d like to develop this further and start to print onto some of my dyed fabric. It’s been great having the garden as a focus for my artwork to create a welcome distraction from all the depressing headlines at the moment, and of course to make the most of staying at home.

Week one

Results of natural dye experiments with oak twigs

And with red onion skins - not quite the pinky purples I was expecting!

Natural dye made from a bunch of lilies (I particularly like the soft greens of the yarn)

A welcome splash of colour thanks to the pot of onion skins boiling away

Trying out different ways of making leaf impressions

In an attempt to post a bit more regularly on this blog, I am going to try to do a weekly round-up of what I’ve been up to in my virtual Garden Residency. It’s been a good start despite the grey and gloomy weather, and I’ve enjoyed having a definite focus to the hour I spend on this before work each day.

Natural dyeing

Dyeing embroidery thread and lined thread for bookbinding

A rare green result (from rosemary)

A palette of soft browns from the last of the red acer leaves fallen from the tree in my garden

An amazingly vibrant pink dye made from sloes

Apologies for the prolonged silence on here… I’ve been very busy with work for the past couple of months. Not too busy to squeeze in some more natural dyeing experiments though. A trip to Norfolk at the end of September yielded some useful finds… eucalyptus bark, hawthorn berries and leaves, acorn galls and a bumper crop of sloes. I’ve been making dye with all of these, with varying degrees of success. Up until recently, I’ve just been dyeing cotton lawn fabric, but I’ve expanded my experiments to include some antique linen, white embroidery thread, lined thread (which I use for bookbinding) and also some Aran yarn. The yarn takes up the colour much better than the other (plant) fibres, but it’s really interesting to compare the results across the range of materials. I’ve been using an iron oxide post-mordant (made by soaking rusty nails in vinegar and water) to extend the colour palettes of the dyes, and I’m also trying to make leftover dye into ink (need some more practice with that).