Posts Tagged ‘orange’
colour on the woodland floor
Today, we went for a walk along the trails at our camp. My favorite path runs along the boundary, next to our zig-zag cedar fence and among young white pine, grey birch, red maple and balsam fir.
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The weather has been very damp, so I expected to find fungi along the way. But I was surprised to see a beautiful patch of bright orange toadstools, each with a distinct orange-red center. They stood out among the red-brown leaves and green mosses.
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I am not good at the identification of fungi, but I think this is Caesar’s mushroom (Amanita caesarea). It is easily confused with the poisonous Amanita muscaria, so no one should use my painting as an identification guide. Just a celebration of orange and red on a fall day.
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November 5, 2015 ‘woodland floor’ Jane Tims
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Copyright Jane Tims 2015
impressions of the day – early morning
Every morning, after waking, I spend a little time in my guest room. I get myself ready for the day – doing a few stretches, looking from the window, greeting Zoë (our cat), planning my day.
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Usually this happens just before sun-up and I am able to watch the sun rise behind the woods in our back yard. I am always amazed at the shift in the location of sun rise, season to season. These November days, it is to the south of where it rose in early summer.
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This morning the sunrise was brilliant, a fire of orange behind the trees. The flaming colours burst through small gaps in the darker trees – inspiration to get out my watercolours!
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November 3, 2015 ‘morning fire’ Jane Tims
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Copyright Jane Tims 2015
ordinary magic
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ordinary magic
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small blue jar
emptied of face cream
reveals a false bottom when held to the light
a bright inverted inner shell
hovers untouchable
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the peel of an orange
spurts flammable oil
cantrips of fire
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press a shell to your ear
murmur of ocean
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
October moon
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moon escape
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above the woods
in sunset’s dying
the moon rose –
orange
and terrifying
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caught in the trees
with the night wind’s sighing
drowned in the lake mists –
mystifying
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captured in the yellow
of a barn owl’s eye
escaping on a wild bird’s
flight to the sky
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a pool of light
where the hounds are lying
ghosts on the line
where the shirts are drying
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a silhouette
for a coyote’s cry
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Sunpoke Lake, October 2011
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
harvesting colour – rose hips
All summer, I watched the rose hips ‘developing’ on our bush and wondered if they would provide colour to my dye pot. The roses are pink in late spring and produce elliptical rose hips, bright orange.
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September 22, 2013 ‘red rose hips from pink roses’ Jane Tims
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Last week, I finally harvested the rose berries. I used scissors to avoid the springiness of the bush and the danger of getting smacked with those thorny branches.
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rose hips from my rose bush, September 2014
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The hips, boiled in water for a couple of hours, created a cloudy orange dye. And the alum-treated wool? A pale pinkish-brown.
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in background, alum-treated wool dyed with rose hips; in the foreground, spun wool dyed with lichen, beet leaves and alder bark
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I have so many shades of brown wool after all my dyeing adventures, this brings into question the idea of ‘best use’ – rose hips are valuable as a source of Vitamin C, can be used in jams, teas and other beverages, and have a potential use in reducing the pain of arthritis. And I apologize to the Chickadees who were so obviously upset as I picked the bright red berries.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
harvesting colour – the orange of alder bark
Last week we went out to our cabin lot to collect some material for my dyeing experiments. We are constantly battling the alders which move in quickly after any clearing. I think my husband was quite agreeable to cutting some alder sticks for me to use as dyestuff. Our alder is Alnus rugosa (Du Roi) Spreng, the speckled alder.
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our harvest of alder stems
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Yesterday, I sat on our deck to peel the bark from the alder sticks. I was acclimatized to the orange dye I expected from the alders by the leavings of last autumn – the piles of dry maple leaves still on the deck and the bright sienna of my terra cotta pots.
The alders peel easily, revealing a bright green inner bark. The green quickly oxidizes to a bright orange, due to the presence of the chemical oregonin. By the end of the debarking session, my jean were stained dark orange and my palms of my hands were covered in the colour of tangerines.
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I was glad to have moved my dyeing adventures out to the back deck because the smell was quite acrid. As I boiled the bark, the water became a dark orange.
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orange colour resulting from boiling the alder bark
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I simmered my length of alum-treated wool roving in the liquid for about an hour.
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wool simmering in the orange alder water – looks like sky and clouds are in there too!
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Although it is not orange, the colour is a pleasing yellowish-brown, similar to but more yellow than the colour obtained from Old Man’s Beard lichen.
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wool dyed with ( left to right) alder bark, lichen and beets
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Now that the warm weather is here, I am looking forward to more hours on the deck, watching over my concoctions and seeing more colours emerge!!!
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
harvesting colour – onion skins in a pickle jar
According to India Flint (Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles, Interweave Press, 2010) the principal ingredient in any natural dyeing project is time (and patience). Now, while I am still getting organized, I have decided to begin with a simple project that can take all the time it needs.
I have chosen a cotton shirt for this project. I wore it for a couple of years and loved its iridescent buttons, rows of ruffles and embroidered details. Then it became stained and I put it away.
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my 100% cotton shirt
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Today, I scattered the onion skins I have saved across its surface – some from Yellow Onions and some from Red Onions. As I worked, I sprayed apple cider vinegar to wet the fabric. Then I rolled it up tightly and poked it into a big pickle jar. For at least a month, I will leave the jar to sit on my window sill and cook in the sun. If it starts to grow mold, I am going to stuff it in the freezer. The biggest challenge was getting all that material to fit in the jar!
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materials for my onion skin dyeing project – the platter is so you cannot see my messy kitchen …
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all I can say is ‘yum’ …
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If you hear of a smelly house for sale in rural New Brunswick, you will know something went terribly wrong. I will show you the results, as well as the poem this generates, in about a month’s time …
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detail of the machine embroidery on my cotton shirt
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
the colour of November #1 (Winterberry red)
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Last week, we went out to our cabin to do some reading and cutting of the ever-growing vegetation. In spite of the mower and the thinning saw and regular prunings, the field seems to grow vegetation behind your back. When you turn around, an alder or a birch tree has filled in a patch you thought was only grass.
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As we planned a new path across the field, we considered each sapling before we cut. To our surprise, we found another bush of Winterberry Holly (Canada Holly, Ilex verticillata (L.) Gray). Many grow down by the lake, but up in the field by our cabin, we know only of one other.
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This time of year their leaves are bronzed and brown and their berries are orange-red. The berries will persist on the leafless branches all through the winter.
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The berries of the Winterberry Holly are so much fun to paint. I started with a layer of red, added orange and then layers of white, yellow and red in turn. I finished with a dot of black and a dot of white on the majority of the berries.
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October 27, 2013 ‘Winterberry red’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
the colour of October #2 – Red Oak
Our leaves have reached the ‘world on fire’ stage. We took a drive along the St. John River to our cabin yesterday and were immersed in reds, oranges and yellows. I particularly like the Red Oak leaves. They lag behind the Red Maple – some are still green. But a few younger trees show vermillion and orange and purple to rival the maple.
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October 12, 2013 ‘Oak leaves’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
the color of September #1 – squash on the vine
A visit to a friend’s garden and a look at the riot of squash growing in her compost heap has helped me transition from August summer to the pre-autumn days of September. I love the color orange, but I did not know how much fun it would be to try and capture the orange of the squash in watercolor. I hope you like my trio of September squash-on-the-vine paintings.
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August 30, 2013 ‘squash on the vine #1’ Jane Tims
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August 30, 2013 ‘squash on the vine #2’ Jane Tims
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August 31, 2013 ‘squash on the vine #3’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
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