Category Archives: All about Colors?
A Little Bit of Summer, A Little Bit of Winter
I had forgotten about scents, so few flowers really have a strong scent that at least to the male nose last. Today I was handed Cilantro flowers, of which I was a bit skeptical, White flowers and light green stocks, but then I remembered how much I like the way cilantro smells and tastes of course.
I grabbed the test piece I’ve been messing with all spring.
Today is pleasant, cool, but pleasant.
I have put a bunch of different things on this, but hadn’t made notes on what was what, so I unfortunately don’t recall what made the greyish color around the horribly rendered sword, I kind of like it, the color not the sword. I think it was meant to be a scimitar or the like and well, it is sword shapedish? Yes, spellcheck…I hear you.
Anyway, the Blue beneath the sword is a wet green-blue, very nice. It comes from a Purple Iris that is abundant right now. It is very flaky, lots of debri.
The Cilantro flowers turned a most interesting hazy reddish-brown and smelled wonderfully like Cilantro. Still has a good scent to it 20 minutes or so later. We have some Basil coming on and tons of Oregano, maybe I should do a piece with only scented stock…perhaps it might stink both literally and figuratively. I make myself laugh, that is all that matters.
I have a reddish brown and two greens, not sure what to make with that. There have not been any images in my head of late, very empty space as far as hard visuals go. I want to sketch better, losing sight of any image because you cannot capture its essence well enough can be a bit challenging on the artistic nerves.
Fall Fade, Where oh where have the colors gone?
“With a chill in the air the colors retreat, our time so short, our time so sweet. Things are drying, things are dying, soon I won’t be Scrying.”
It is getting tough to find good colors now, many plants have stopped blooming and others, their petals and parts are drying out, their luster lost for another year.
It is mid March and I have painted very little in the last 4-6 weeks, not because of the fall fade, but primarily because my free time has been tied up working on the greenhouse, which is nearing completion, at least enclosure.
The frame is complete and we have the plastic warming in the sun, with plans to get it on a little later today and then comes all of the finishing touches. We ended up finding a UV coated tarp from a company called Tarpaflex that seems like it will make a great cover. It is thick and strong and UV coated. Pictures coming as soon as I get a chance.
Looking for red…
I have been working on one particular piece this week that I am currently calling Purple Spect(ta)re, it is almost finished except I can’t find a good red. There are lots of red flowers in our garden and around, but none of them give a real red color on the canvas, most turn purple or at best some form of burgundy.
I’ve done some research and found a few sites that talk about plant dyes but most of them require processing to get to the color and that isn’t what Scrying is all about for me.
I have turned to berries to try and find the red and found something that kind of works in what Lisa refers to as an Oregon Berry, I don’t know if that is its real name or not, but since I don’t know the names of most flowers I refer to her expertise to tell me what it is that I am messing with most of the time.
The Oregon Berry did give me a bit of a red, but also a brown, it was quite bizarre the way it turned out, but strangely it worked, at least enough for me to be satisfied with it, but now its effects have left me needing a black, which I haven’t come across in anything I have used thus far.
That being said, for those that come here looking for information on plant dyes, I’ll pass along these links that I found that give recommendations on how to get various colors by boiling and other processing methods.
http://www.pioneerthinking.com/crafts/crafts-basics/naturaldyes.html
http://autonopedia.org/crafts_and_technology/Fabric_and_Dyes/List_Of_Plant_Dyes_By_Colour.html
And this book that seemed to be specifically for those of you wanting to die yarns, etc
Colours from Nature, Bobbi A McRae, Storey, 1993
New Project and Palette Book Update
Two things cooking at the moment. The first is I met with Chris from Just Canvas this week to see his prototype for my canvas sketchbook/palette color book. He had a great start and it was very close to what I had in mind. He is going to retool it and have a new version ready to look at sometime next week. As soon as I get it, I will of course post some pictures. I think the idea will work for many other artists well beyond what my concept is for.
The second thing is I had an image pop into my head that I want to paint, but I suspect it may be more of a challenge than I can manage. One of the biggest challenges with Scyring is the inability thus far to produce purposeful detail. I can do accidental detail and vague detail, but when I want to do something on purpose, at least on a small canvas scale it is near impossible, so I am trying to envision images that can be done with what I know works so far.
I think this might work, but I also think it may end up looking nothing like I intend it. I did the following rudimentary sketch and have started to sketch an outline on the canvas for painting. It is a spectre of the stars gazing down at something, it might be the flower as depicted in the preliminary sketch, it may be a pool of waters containing stars or it maybe something else entirely.
Color Storage Experiment
Today I began an experiment with the orange Lilies’. As I do not have any use for the colors they are giving at the moment, I figured now was a good as time as any to see if harvesting the essential parts and saving them in various means might yield fruit.
They have to retain their moisture so until I learn of some other possibilities I have placed a few anther wrapped in a leaf into both the refrigerator and the freezer and will take them out in a few weeks and see how the colors are holding up.
It is mostly the anthers that I am concerned with as they tend to lose their gusto over time as their pollen is harvested or just dries out.
Red & White Petunia’s hijacked from a gas station
Last night on our way home from seeing Sperm! The Musical at the Panida in Sandpoint, ID, I raided the Petunia’s at the gas station on the way out of town.
While my criminal ways may be increasing, it is all in the name of art. The white flower was like most and did nothing other than leave a dirty smudge on the pages of the palette book. The red however left a decent purple, with a strange silver/grey spot at the center. I am not sure what part of the flower caused it, but I hope to get some more samples to try and see if it can be isolated. As of yet I have not had any luck in finding a color such as that.
Palette Book Reveal
I went to the store today in search of the holy frozen Pizza grail and found it, but along the way I found something else that was yellow and orange, kind of like cheese on a pizza.
As I pulled in to the parking lot, I saw a woman carrying out a bright orange Lily. It wasn’t a Day Lily either, which I have had no luck with yet, but the asian kind, like the Black Lily that has great purples and that fabulous yellow. I went in and went to the flower section.
Bursting from the shelves were bright orange flowers and huge anthers loaded with pollen. I immediately wanted to load them all in my cart, but I was after pizza and I was also on a budget. I picked out a medium sized one that has lots of blooms left to come on, but that also had a few open and ready for sampling.
I was happy and excited until I looked up and saw the even bigger purple and white Lilies, with bulging dark orange anthers, the orange Lily had a brown anther that I wasn’t sure what color it might give.
I plucked a couple of the anthers off the other plant and dropped them in with mine, grand theft anther…all in the name of color.
I decided now was as good a time as any to put the samples in the current Palette Book and take a few pictures to show what it looks like. This is from one of the orange pages, the book is separated in the old grade school ROY G. BIV format.
Here you can see the color results from the Orange Lily, the first is from the leaf, it dries a little on the peach side, with streaks of purple in it from somewhere.
The anther gives a nice burnt umber brown that will go really nice doing dirt, forest floors and maybe tree trunks. Unfortunately, though I love yellow, red and orange, I am definitely in something of a blue period. They give me calm.
The next picture is the whole page thus far. In addition to the orange Lily and Anther, you see Orange Marigold and the Anther I borrowed from the white and purple Lilie’s.
It is important to note, this palette book is more of a thick card stock paper, what I picture a water color painter would use. I have yet to try these out on canvas. Someday soon I hope to find a canvas paged book to start a canvas palette book with.
If anyone knows of something like that that exists, please let me know.
I’ll do more palette pages over time.
Color options
Today I set out to talk a little about colors. One of the funnest and most challenging things about painting with flowers is that you only have what nature gives you to work with. I am lucky to be blessed with a girlfriend with a rainbow colored thumb which provides a fair amount of options to explore. Plus if there is something I want more of or would like her to add, she is generally very accommodating because it shows I am also taking interest in the things she likes, albeit mine come from a direction, they both get us to the same place.
The only challenge thus far has been that she has a bit of an aversion to yellows and oranges, but luckily for me, she likes me, so there are a few floating around.
Although it would probably only be a misdemeanor, I reccommend not raiding your neighbors garden at least not without permission. Another option is to just go and buy plants or bouquets and come winter time I just might do the latter, but there is something special about knowing that the place you are taking from will give again next year.
Besides, I haven’t yet been thrown out by security, but I have gotten more than one strange look as we wander around a nursery and I take a petal or two from various plants and stick them in my pocket…
You can also look in public spaces for many different options you may not have at home quite yet. Parks, playgrounds, office buildings etc all have landscaping from which to try a few, take sparingly or ask for permission first.
Here is a sample of the colors I found in Lisa’s garden this weekend, omitting green of course. This was done on some thick sketchbook paper which as close as I can tell behaves like watercolor paper. Some of the colors are quite a bit different then on canvas.
One tip for colors in the wild. Either have a canvas or your palette book handy in order to put the petals to use. Most don’t hold up to waiting for very long and while sometimes a dryer flower will give you different results, a too dry flower will give you nothing at all and then the gift is wasted.
Have a camera available as well unless you are a master gardener or a botanist as trying to identify a flower later might be hard to do if you wanted to use it again.
Bring plastic bags with you and store the petals in one until you get home to use them. They will not dry out anywhere near as quick and though I haven’t tried it yet, placing them in the fridge might preserve them a little longer.
Best choice of all though might be to just bring your canvas with you and see what you can create with what you are given.
Black Hollyhock – Sticky Purple
When Lisa brought me a leaf from her just in bloom black Hollyhock, I quickly tried it on the nearest piece of paper I could find and discovered it to be the most vibrant purple I had seen yet and I had discovered a lot of purples in the garden.
It is very sticky to work with and can leave a faint purple color or a deep rich purple that can over power in certain situations. Use it to pop or with other strong colors. It does leave behind a fair amount of debris.
I unfortunately put it on to the original sample canvas and found that it was a bit too much compared to what was already on there. At present I haven’t quite decided what if anything to do with it now.
