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 eight

Starting to crochet up small squares of dyed yarn to create a sampler

Results of dyeing with Hypericum (St John’s Wort) – a good range of colour, much stronger on wool

Finished my stitched fabric collage - bit wonky but good to see what colours go together

A welcome injection of colour – cranberries in the dye pot

Printing my woodcut

February’s daily drawings complete… a month of line drawings with flowers starting to make an appearance towards the end

Felt like the start of Spring this week… mornings are still cold and frosty, but sunshine and blue skies during the day really lifted the spirits. Quite a bit of dyeing going on in the background - should be able to show the results next week… I’m hoping some of the vibrant pink from frozen cranberries left over from Christmas will remain after rinsing. I’ve enjoyed making more rubber stamps to experiment with pattern - I’m going to try to do at least one of these each month so I have a set of patterns by the end of the year. I finished stitching onto my collage of fabric offcuts - it’s pretty rough around the edges, but I quite like the mark making of the stitches, and it’s good to start working with some of the dyed materials and see how the colours work alongside each other. I’ve also started crocheting some small swatches of the dyed yarn (remembering to label them as I go!) so that I can eventually put together a sampler. I completed my month of daily line drawings… it was interesting to see more flowers appearing by the last week of February, so that should bring more inspiration for future months.

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 four

Wax resist ink drawings based on photos on branches in the snow taken in the brief window of white stuff on Sunday morning

Ink drawing of a Viburnum branch - colour rubbed from the actual berries and leaves

Collage of natural ink offcuts with drawings of fruit tree branches

A neater version of the stamped pattern I created a couple of weeks ago for covers on a coptic bound sketchbook. The linen thread is dyed with red onion - a perfect match for the ‘pear tart’ ink stamp pad

Experiment with stitching onto paper. Naturally dyed linen thread over the top of the corresponding homemade ink. From left to right: onion skins, hawthorn, holly berry and eucalyptus bark

A close up of the holly berry circle… this is my favourite ink so far - a really rich colour

Another productive week… my ‘garden residency’ seems to be balancing well with my day job so far - by doing something every day, I find I get into a rhythm of working and can maintain some momentum. This first month has been a lot of trying things out, but having just spent a day pulling everything together into a large scrapbook to record my progress, I’m happy with how it’s shaping up. Results have been a bit hit and miss, but I’ve learnt a lot and had fun getting back to playing again. It’s certainly been a welcome distraction in a particularly bleak January, and has left very little time for feeling bored or hemmed in at home.

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.

New year, new challenge

First drawings using ink I’ve made from acorn galls of a skeleton poppy head from my front garden...

Happy new year!

Inspired by increased time spent outside growing things over the past year, and also the fact that we’ll clearly be based at home for a good while yet, I’ve invented a ‘virtual residency’ for myself in my garden for 2021.

My aim is to give myself a clear focus for creating new work over the next 12 months, but with an emphasis on learning and developing new techniques and processes.

I’m hoping it will evolve as I go along, and it will need to fit in with working full-time, but I’m looking forward to investigating the inspiration outside my back door a lot more closely.

First (made up) rule of the garden residency - draw more. Second rule - try to use more natural materials in my work.

Festive greetings

Finishing work, online shop closed and I’m finally getting ready for a festive two week break - hurray! It may feel quite different this year, but I hope you have a very happy Christmas wherever you are…

Re:connections

Really pleased to be part of the ‘Re-connections’ exhibition of artists’ books at the Upright Gallery in Edinburgh, which opens today. The two books I made during the first lockdown will be on display until 19 December, alongside a wonderful array of bookish loveliness from around 30 artists. More photos and films of individual books can be seen at @uprightgallery on Instagram.

Here’s the official description of the exhibition…

‘During the lockdown we were all forced to reconsider how we could best keep connected with people and life in general. Artists were not exempt from this challenge. Many had to rethink how they physically carried out their work, what their artworks meant and how they connect with their audience in an unprecedented time. This exhibition will show artist books on the theme of connections - past, present and future.’

Many thanks to Susie Wilson, and Ian Farmer from the Upright Gallery for curating the exhibition – I wish I could visit in person, but hopefully you can go along if you’re north of the border.

STOP PRESS: I was very excited to learn that my two books in this exhibition have been bought by the National Galleries of Scotland for their Artists’ Book Collection. An upbeat note on which to end a topsy turvy year!

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).

Featured artist

Very grateful to the lovely Primrose Paper Arts Inc. in Australia for featuring me on their blog this month. Their website is a real treasure trove of papery inspiration, and well worth a look

A cheery hello to any new visitors from Down Under who’ve found their way here via that blog article!

A summer of dyeing

Coreopsis - collected from two pots, dead-headed over a few months (and stored in the freezer)

The dry fabric (top left), a third batch of dye left to soak for only a few hours (top right) and how it looks after being dipped in iron oxide (bottom)

Fabric dyed with Lady’s Mantle drying on the line

Dyeing with rhubarb root

The lovely soft colours of dyeing with acorns

After being interested in the idea of natural dyes for a while now, this summer - with more time at home at weekends - I’ve finally dipped my toe in the waters (or dye bath) of starting to experiment with creating dyes from plants. I don’t have an end result in mind, I’m just fascinated by the process of creating new colours from natural materials.

I prepared a few metres of cotton lawn (scouring the fabric and then mordanting it with Alum) and then have been dyeing fabric swatches over the past few months. I’m learning as I go along (from books and lots of really useful online content shared by other natural dyers) but I’ve found the slow process of learning a new skill through ‘doing’ to be very absorbing. I started with rhubarb root (a pinky-ochre) and then moved onto mulberries (pale grey, not the purple you would expect) and Lady’s Mantle (a strong yellow-ochre). Buddleia (bright yellow) and Coreopsis (strong orange) provided the most dramatic results, but I’m very pleased with the soft browns of acorns.

The fabric does take on colour in a cold dye bath but heating the fabric up in the dye bath definitely gives more intense results. I’m also starting to experiment with dipping some of the dyed fabric into second mordants - iron oxide (made with rusty nails and vinegar) dulls colours, some more dramatically than others; vinegar lightens colours and bicarbonate of soda darkens them a little. So you can get quite a colour palette from one dye bath.

A very BIG book of patterns

Following on from my workshop with Sarah Burns I started using rubber stamps to make new pattern experiments. After building up a pile of paper, I realised that it would be more useful to have one place to work on patterns so that I can see them side-by-side. So I treated myself to a giant scrapbook (decorated with my Alpha-set) and started stamping. It’s good to be able compare patterns, seeing them side-by-side so I can decide which ones have potential and which ones are duffers. It’s quite an addictive process!

Patternmakers

Last month I spent a really brilliant day on a one-to-one online workshop run by Sarah Burns (@patternmakers on Instagram). We started with potato printing - shouldn’t every day should start with this? - and moved onto lino . So many useful tips for exploring the potential of a simple printing block and printing onto fabric. My brain was bursting with pattern possibilities by the end of the day. Many thanks to Sarah for a very inspiring day…
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