The Kowhai Experiment

Kowhai means Yellow in Maori and the Kowhai is native to NZ. At this time of year there is yellow everywhere and Tui birds galore. I was at turning point the other day setting the loom when I suddenly had a light bulb moment! As you can see the Kowhai is a brilliant shade of yellow and I decided to see if I could capture some of that by making a dye from the flowers. For the record, Kowhai are a protected species so I only used fallen flowers. I kinda like the sound of "Fallen Kowhai Dye" anyway:) So, as soon as I finished the loom I went back to Yatton Park (where I found the nest) and picked up as many fresh looking flowers as I could find. I must have used a good 50 or so. Not knowing any better I decided to treat the Kowhai like Marigolds. I pulled the petals and stamens from the flowers then boiled the whole lot for 10 minutes. After straining it this is what I got....

It looks a little like another fluid I shall not mention and smelt a bit like silverbeet! None the less I had a lovely golden liquid to soak my paper pulp in. The pulp being white inevitably diluted the strength of the resulting colour but I was surprised at how much so! Marigold dye still stays a strong yellow (from orange flowers) when mixed with pulp. I was committed to my experiment though and continued on with it anyway.

The resulting paper wasn't exactly Yellow! It's a warm cream with a slight lean in the direction of brown! The water that was left in the vat after all my pulp was out was still slightly yellow but it didn't transfer itself to the paper as willingly as Marigold. I wonder if I need some sort if fixative? Natural of course.This experiment shall continue!

It's my friends birthday soon so I made her a Van Gogh note book. 4 signatures half the size of an A4...that's A2 right? It was actually harder to make than the bigger book but it came out ok after a bit of extra fiddling about. I used Van Gogh greeting cards to make the cover.

The book with white pages on the not quite white, warm cream Kowhai paper.

I acquired some more feathers yesterday! My dh actually plucked black and blue feathers from a 'just dead' roadkill pukeko he saw on the road. It had just been hit so he pulled over his motorbike, moved the bird and bought me home feathers! 10 outa 10 to him I say!

Happy Birthday Van Gogh!

I mentioned a while ago that I was not- so- patiently waiting for my Van Gogh tin to arrive in my mail box...well here it is! I was going to post this earlier but then I realised that Van Gogh's birthday was this month and I thought it would be nice to hold of till now. I am really pleased with my tin (which is litterally over-flowing) and I hope that there will be another swap of this type in the future.

My thanks have to go to the groups hostess Beth and all the artists who contributed from the Off the Page Yahoo group.

Van Gogh themed Altered Tobacco Tin

I can take no credit for the art work...I recycled the images from an old Art History Encyclopedia and then collaged them onto old memory game cards. I was thrilled when I realised they would fit perfectly! This tin has just left on a 10mnth RR journey and already I can't wait to see how it comes back! Guess I'd better be patient!

Van Gogh Tree

I pass this tree when I take the kids to school and it's always seemed familiar to me although I couldn't figure out why. One day when I went passed I suddenly realised it's "Van Gogh's Tree" or more correctly, a tree that reminds me of the way that Van Gogh paints trees. I feel no connection with Van Gogh's sunflowers or paintings of farm scenes but for some reason I love his trees. They're not pretty, in fact I think they are more haunting than nice but I am drawn to them. No suprises to hear then that I also like his kingfisher painting and there's another one I am not sure that title of that has a lone bird flying over a field of wheat or something similar. Art needs to connect with the viewer in some way and Van Gogh's trees do it for me. I'm good with that! I've painted several trees but none that have had the same draw for me as Van Gogh's. What the difference is I am not sure, aside from the fact that I am obviously not Vincent Van Gogh! I'm currently participating in an Altered Tin Round Robin where each player will add a card to my tin with there artwork on it...my theme's Van Gogh but once it's left my house this week it won't be back for about 7 months (omg... that's next year!!) so it will be a while before I will see the results. I'll try to remember to take a pic of my altered tin when I have done it (hopefully this week all going well!)

If your in the mood for a bit of browsing there's a great travelling exhibition (currently in NY...not sure where in NY though sorry John) that's also on line. It's called "your documents please" and has around 200 artworks in the form of 'passports.' The exhibition explores everything from the artists personal culture to the artists feelings about land wars, border security, immigaration etc. It's well worth a look even if you can't sit down and view all 200 works of art! http://yourdocumentsplease.com/

Oh, wow! I just went to Trijnie's blog to leave a link about the whales and look what I found... THANKS Trijnie!
For those of you who havn't visited her blog before Trijnie is a mulit talented multi media artist working with glass, taking award winning scenic photos and creating beautiful and inspiring paintings...a blog well worth adding to your fav's if you havn't already!