Interesting Fire. It’ll be worth keeping those as a record.
Yes, it's tricky to know how to keep test samples. My houses is currently full of cork boards with bits stuck to them and written out recipe sheets. Maybe I'll start a chunky spell book.
My next step is to mordant a load of cloth (including silk) and carefully dye up larger batches. I'd like to do a deep nettle. For a bigger load of cloth with fresh plant material, you do generally need rubbish bags full of plant material, which I don't have, but nettles might be fine. Making inks and paints are easier as I only need cupfuls of petals etc.
Well, it doesn't really capture the real shades (hard as I tried). The camomile is really quite yellow. The quick dip nettle is a lovely even French grey. I'll do both for the moment - keep the samples and take pics. I like the analogue world.
Speaking of which, I am having fun getting to know the world of fountain pens, dip pens, inks and calligraphy - a whole universe unto itself, in the same way as quilting world or lino printing world, I imagine.
I got my old family pens repaired before Christmas and it's thrilling to finally be able to write with them again. I found Noodlers Ink, some of which is 'waterproof', so I can use the pens for everyday writing, for jobs such as addressing envelopes. All very exciting.
Learning the basics of calligraphy I'm finding agonisingly slow, but it's good precision practice. Precision is a very weak area for me, brain-wise, so it's good to finally slow down and work on exactitude. Hopefully, in the way of building a muscle, it will get easier over time. Gardening is helping in this area too. It's depressing to not be able to write in a straight line or form an even letter C. In my free and funky 1970s school we didn't learn handwriting. Trying to get the brain and hand to learn the basics aged 50 is humbling, to say the least.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about the background of calligraphy, Maydi Diaz is pretty incredible. I find her joyful. Worth following if you are into this kind of thing. I am making oak gall ink according to her recipe.
It must be lovely to do caligraphy @Fire, I love the brown willows,also the red onion. @chicky Well done on your crochet learning,would love to see what you make when its finished. Ive made a start on an "Abstract" but the light has been really awful until yesterday. Its nice to have something when gardening is a no no.😊
The whole truth is an instrument that can only be played by an expert.
It will be @valley gardener. Right now the air is blue and I am mind-boggled how hard it is to complete a simple task. I think the key is to slow right down. I tend to think fast and write too fast, so it's about going into a whole new gear. Which is no bad thing at all.
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I played around with various pen at one stage. I think the pens and nibs are put away safely somewhere.
@chicky Well done on your crochet learning,would love to see what you make when its finished.
Ive made a start on an "Abstract" but the light has been really awful until yesterday.
Its nice to have something when gardening is a no no.😊
It will be @valley gardener. Right now the air is blue and I am mind-boggled how hard it is to complete a simple task. I think the key is to slow right down. I tend to think fast and write too fast, so it's about going into a whole new gear. Which is no bad thing at all.