Is there any more beautiful–and otherworldly–colour than blue? No other colour in my experience appears and disappears with such unpredictability! Blue surrounds us in our daily lives and it is as vast as the sky and the ocean itself. But, just try to take hold of it and all you’ll be left with is a handful of air or water.
Natural blue pigments are equally ephemeral and seem transient between this world and the other: Grind a bit of azurite a little to long and the colour will disappear, or don’t offer your prayer fervently enough when mixing a kettle of woad and all you’ll create is green sludge. And then there are black minerals, like vivianite, which disclose their blueness only once their rocky physicality is removed and a shapeless powder is all that remains.
It always takes a little bit of magic and luck to create blue pigments.
- Woad Harvest: Indigo September 21, 2009
Over the past week I've been carefully cleaning the indigo pigment I harvested from my woad plants this year.
This was possible because the morning after I was so disheartened to be left only with green form I opened my vat to discover a rich blue foam... - Woad Harvest September 12, 2009
Over this part summer my wife and I left a couple of plots "unplanted" in our garden. Instead we shook out last years woad seeds over the earth and let the plots be. As I had hoped, the woad plants grew up among the weeds. But last night it went down to 6... - Ultramarine Blue: Purify Resin June 19, 2009
When my children and I collected the sap from the pine trees, we also ended up with extra bits of bark, bugs and leaves. I didn't think that this would help in my little project, so I set about purifying the sap.
The simplest way I could find to puri... - Ultramarine Blue: Pine Resin June 15, 2009
I grew up in a sandy area, north of Barrie, where pine trees were abundant, but where my family and I live now is a very different region. Pine trees don't naturally grow here in Conestogo where it is so wet and the soil has so much clay.
But, just n... - Icon: Painting September 24, 2008
So, it's time to get down to work and begin painting. It's been a long road to get to this point (as those of you following this blog will attest to) and it is very exciting for me to begin.
The colour that I chose to begin with was the Maya Blue. This... - Maya Blue: Pigment Trials September 5, 2008
The final step in making the Maya Blue pigment involves heating it. Without this step, the indigo pigment does not gain any special durability. When I was reading about this process, I was surprised at it's implied simplicity: Mix together and heat. Howev... - Marl Lake: Preparing Maya Blue September 3, 2008
So here we are! After preparing the polygorskite and the woad it's time to make my Maya Blue pigment.
Maya Blue is a really interesting pigment. By itself, the blue of indigo darkens to black over time but once this plant material is embedded into the ... - Newtonville: Woad Pigment August 22, 2008
With the indigo released from the woad leaves all that remains to be done is cleaning. The liquid, which is a dark green to begin, is carefully moved from pail to pail always adding clean water between. Between each pouring the pigment must be allowed to ... - Newtonville: Indigo Whirl August 20, 2008
I may have gotten a little off track with my magnetite collecting, but there is so many interesting things happening right now that it's hard to report on them all!
You'll remember that the indigo leaves were left steeping in hot water. After the indig... - Marl Lake: Polygorskite August 14, 2008
At the same time that I am creating my indigo pigment I thought I should also get things underway in purifying the Marl I collected. What I really want to have from that Marl is a clay-ish mineral called Polygorskite. The other part of this marl is calciu... - Newtonville: Harvest August 13, 2008
Coming back from collecting "Maya Blue clay" gave me a renewed excitement about my woad plants. While I had high hopes initially about my plants, and put a lot of time and effort into creating a place where they could grow, my plants haven't come up like ... - Marl Lake: Marl August 12, 2008
Since I began this project I have been pining for a good blue to use in my icon. Growing some woad and thereby having indigo to use was a wonderful start but certain concerns were always in the back of my mind as to whether such pigment could really be co... - Newtonville Blooming July 1, 2008
The woad in last years garden is blooming and I thought it was worth a picture. Second year woad doesn't have any worth for pigment directly (all the blue-indigo is gone), but the seeds from this plant will continue the growing cycle next year when I plan... - Newtonville: Planting May 28, 2008
With the ground prepared only one things remained to be done: Planting the woad seeds.
Here again I had little helpers and, by the end, I think we had worked out a nice system. I did the plowing of a shallow trough (using the old hoe my grandfather g... - Newtonville: Making Beds May 27, 2008
Now that the ground was open I could begin creating a proper field. In this endeavour I had wonderful help. While I raked and piled the dirt into mounds, my children followed and threw the stones off to the sides. As I've noticed happens with kids, ... - Newtonville: Plowing May 26, 2008
With my neighbour's land being made available, my biggest problem was solved, but there was still a lot of work to do.
The evening after I had received permission to plant my woad in the back of Chip's Garage, I walked around the small field and wond... - Newtonville: Land May 25, 2008 Before receiving hundreds of woad seeds I had to answer one question: Where could I plant such a crop? My wife's response to taking over her entire garden for the year was not favourable ... I had to think outside the box. Our neighbours to the east are C...
- Newtonville: Look what came! May 22, 2008
I am very excited to report that I received in the mail yesterday my package of seeds from the Cottage Gardener. Mary and Dan Brittain, the owners of this wonderful organic seed company are one of the sponsors of the 100 mile ART Project and they have ver... - Vivianite December 8, 2007
My favourite blue pigment is made from vivianite. Not that I wish to imply that I see a lesser beauty in azure blue or ultramarine blue - both of which I enjoy immensely - but there is something in the tone of this blue to I am really drawn to.
As a ro... - Woad Pigment: Decantoring August 19, 2007
I usually don't allow myself to become obsessed about iconography issues on Sunday, but today was a very relaxed day and the work was very minim, so I did a little bit with the woad.
I also was looking for an end to my suspense! And, as I carefully got... - Woad Pigment: Harvesting August 18, 2007
One of the very few dyes that can be used reliable as a pigment comes from the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria). It is also sometimes called wild mustard. This spring my wife planted a small crop for me in her garden and with the weather turning cooler I t... - Georgetown Pigments July 9, 2007
For this trip to collect pigment, I was very fortunate to have the help of a fellow member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Gem and Mineral Club, Reiner. After a couple of conversations on the topic of rocks and pigments, Reiner expressed an interest in comi... - Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia August 21, 2006
The site of the old Dunbrack Mine caught our interest because the minerals found at the site included two rarities of particular interest: Azurite and Malachite. A local man who we met at the Nova Scotia Gem & Mineral Show, Doug, was kind enough t...