I love to explore how our forebears might have worked when creating art...discovering my own pigments, grinding and making paints, making my own pens or other tools, trying out natural dyes or inks...
Drawing with a twig dipped in paint or ink connects me to ancestors long gone. They drew on cave walls and stone and parchment, I on paper made from plants--but still I sense them looking over my shoulder.
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| Hematite on a grinding stone...it makes a beautiful reddish brown color. That's the hematite stone itself at lower right. |
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| My palette of natural colors! |
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| This is the healing hand symbol currently on my healing drum...it's limonite I found in our local river's gravel bar. I've since found a darker stone, perhaps a type of hematite like the one above, that I want to use, so may give it a try. It's a good feeling to honor our ancestors and to use the kinds of tools they might have used. |
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| I often use this river stone for smoothing, rather than reach for the sandpaper... |
Check out Nick Neddo's book, The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints and More from Nature, or Sandy Webster's Earthen Pigments; Hand-Gathering & Using Natural Colors in Art for much, much more.
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It was a honeysuckle, honeybee, and hummingbird kind of a morning and I loved sitting and working
where I could see these little visitors.
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| This little female repeatedly darts in for a taste, chittering each time, then draws away before chittering and diving for another taste. None of the others seem to need to vocalize before drinking--perhaps she's giving thanks! |
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Interesting, to me, the way my blog offers related posts or those you might be interested in. I checked back on this one, on nurturing or killing creativity and found it relevant but ironic, in one way.
Though I am normally not one for challenges or prompts, I have taken on this 31-day challenge, and I DO feel a bit constrained by it, as I thought I would.
Still it is one I need, and it's deeper and more personal than most, and completely self-directed--letting the days unfold as they will, grateful for what they offer me.
(And if you're interested in what DOES nourish my own creativity, that was the post before, here.)
