So, why Scrye?

I wanted to find a name for what I was doing. I figured while it wasn’t likely a medium which an artist would likely use to paint with, with all of today’s modern choices, at the very least native americans and our ancestors used some form of plant matter to make the colors in their paintings. The closest I found in my few searches were related to using plants as dyes, which is essentially the same, but not entirely.

While some of the same colors are probably found in the plants they used, they are not strictly speaking devised in the same way. For me, extraction of the color comes from taking the petals, leaves, stamens or other parts and rubbing them against the canvas itself to bring out whatever color is on or inside the plant. There are many and there will probably be tons of posts covering this that and everything else regarding to some of the more interesting flowers and or colors I have found and how they come out on different substrates, but for now, let’s just leave it at many.

When you first start rubbing a petal against canvas, you will find that it leaves behind color, moisture and often times debris. It was after trying many different flowers that I realized each one behaved differently, some were dry(leaves of plants and pollens), others were very moist and came off runny(berries especially), some left behind debris which could be bothersome, others were sticky and hard to work with and some dry a completely different color than they start. Here is a good point to mention that many flowers do not give the same color as they appear and often times they can give more than one and other parts might give something else entirely, just like the yellow pollen from the Anther of a Black Lily.

I set out to make a classification system so that I could keep track of which did what and make sure that I did not use some of the more bothersome ones and accidentally ruin what I was working on.

And from that, the name was born.

As of this writing, the letters mean the following things

S – Scented, gives off an odor that may hopefully last after the material has dried.
C – Crumbly, leaves debris, can sometimes be brushed away with your hand, but may be bothersome.
R – Runny or potentially too moist, can also be sticky
Y – Leaf is dry, may require extra effort to get to the color
E – This one had a meaning, but I have since combined it with R, so for now it is just a place holder, until I determine the need for another descriptor.

D – Dries a different color than when it is wet
+ – Requires a lot of material to make swatch of color
– – Requires only a little to make a swatch of color