Experiments!

I'm at Lillian E. Smith Center for a few days and I'm trying out some things that I don't have time for while at home.  A couple of directions are pulling me while I'm here and I'm trying my best to go in both of those, spending part of the day in one focus and then shifting to another for the later part of the day.

So here's some of what's happening while I'm here.  I'm working with natural materials and how they might be used for my art work.  No, not unique explorations, I know.  But they are a bit new for me.

First, earlier in the day I worked with drawing on paper that I'd dampened, using a stainless stylus.  I then dipped the paper with drawing into black walnut dye that I'd cooked yesterday.  Here's the dipping and the results.

Dipping into the dye...

I'll work on this more later with earth pigment paints.

I worked later in the afternoon with earth pigment paints, using Sandy Webster's book, Earthen Pigments,  as guide.  I also referred to The Organic Artist for info:

Grinding some earth pigment...

I've collected 15 bags of different colors of earth and here are some of them laid out to dry:

... mulling the earth pigment to grind it smooth to use as paint.

So far, here are the colors from the earth pigmets.  Five of the fifteen I've collected.

More experiments soon as I try acorn ink, using the suggestions from The Organic Artist as guide.