HARVEST MOON: exploring the colour green
earth pigments, Mugwort + the kit I use to make paint
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
In the first lockdown, amidst Ceredigion blue skies and befuddled facetimes with friends and family, I went along to one of the splendid Flora Arbutnott’s online ink-maker sessions. In the introduction to our shared colour noodling, she mentioned how green is one of the hardest colours to find and fix in natural ink/dye making as it is “ the colour of life” and this has stuck with me since. I think about it a lot, and as the September winds and rain settle into this rural edge of the UK, I am thinking about the colour green and making it with plants, earth and metal, as I watch it slowly fade from the outside world.
This HARVEST MOON post shares my green findings, plant conversation and pigment paint-making research and process.
It's not easy being green.
It seems you blend in with so many other
ordinary things.
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water-
or stars in the sky.-Kermit
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