Posts Tagged ‘yellow’
three yellows
On Sunday, we went for a drive along New Brunswick Route 615, eventually travelling from Mactaquac to Nackawic. A pleasant drive, climbing into the hills of this part of New Brunswick.
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Early into our drive, a theme suggested itself … the yellow flowers of spring. These included the daffodil and the blazing Forsythia (Forsythia sp.) … a deciduous shrub with copious yellow blooms.
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Another yellow flower crowding the edges of almost every ditch, was Tussilago farfara or Coltsfoot. The flowers have been in bloom a couple of weeks and will soon set their white fluffy seed. After the flowers have faded, the leaves will appear, big green ears seemingly unrelated to the yellow flowers of spring.
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At the foot of a farmer’s field, we saw another yellow flower, usually found in wooded wet areas or in hardwoods. The mottled green and purple leaves are the first identifying feature. Close-up, the nodding yellow flower with its recurved petals and drooping stamens show this is the Dog’s Tooth Violet, or Yellow Trout-lily (Erythronium americanum).
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Today, my yellow tulips are blooming, yet another addition to the yellow flowers of this season.
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All my best,
Jane
mustard electric
More painting going on. Trying to capture some of our dramatic New Brunswick landscape.
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This summer we drove through the rural countryside near Millville and loved the brilliant yellow mustard fields.
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This painting is called ‘mustard electric’, 24″ by 20″, acrylic, gallery edges, painted with Hansa yellow, Ultramarine blue, Titanium white. When I had it in the living room, it was impossible to ignore, its blast of yellow lingering in the peripheral vision!
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September 10, 2016 ‘mustard electric’ near Millville, N.B. Jane Tims
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
harvesting yellow … yes, yellow!
After so many lovely browns in my palette of natural dyes, I have despaired of seeing anything but brown when I lift my wool roving from the dye pot. A friend suggested I try Goldenrod (Solidago sp.). Goldenrod, in a variety of species, is plentiful along the roads this time of year. So, this week, on a drive to see our newly opened section of Route 8, we stopped long enough to collect a bag of Goldenrod.
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Goldenrod along the new highway
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Collecting Goldenrod is new to me. I am always worried it may cause hay-fever, but I learned during my fact-finding – Goldenrod is rarely responsible for triggering allergies. Its pollen is large and heavy and transported by insects and not the wind. Ragweed is the real culprit, according to my reading.
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a glory of Solidago
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I also took a crash course in Goldenrod identification – Goldenrods have always stayed on my ‘refuse to identify’ list. They are actually quite easy to distinguish in our area. There are only 14 common species in New Brunswick and identification points include the size and number of basal leaves, leaf venation, the degree of stem hairiness and the general shape of the inflorescence. It was easy to discover the name of the species I collected – Downy Goldenrod (Solidago puberula Nutt.)
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a bag of Goldenrod took no time at all to collect
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The collecting experience? Bright and very aromatic. Smelling Goldenrod is like stuffing your nose in a dandelion.
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I had lots of material to work with, so preparing the pot of dyestuff was enjoyable too. And the smell as it boiled – very sweet. Most of the plants I’ve used for dyestuff have an unpleasant smell like boiling cabbage.
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Goldenrod added to the dye pot
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The result was a yellow dye.
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the yellow dye of Solidago
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But since the colour of the dye seems unrelated to the resulting colour of the wool, my expectations were low. Imagine my joy when the wool emerged from the dye-bath a beautiful lemony yellow!
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wool roving, treated with alum and simmered for an hour in Goldenrod dye
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Yellow! Sigh.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
harvesting colour – the yellow of tansy
Since last September, a small bunch of Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.) has hung on the line in my kitchen. Now, with a small batch of alum-treated wool, I am able to see what colour will come from the dried and lifeless flowers.
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dried Tansy, collected in 2013
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To extract the dye, I crumbled the flowers and leaves and soaked them in water overnight. Then I added more water and brought them slowly to a boil in my big, well-marked dyepot (marked so I will not use it for food by mistake). After an hour’s boil, I let the dye cool and strained the liquid. The result was a clear, amber-yellow dye.
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dye from Tansy and water, simmered
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To dye the wool, I added water, immersed a shank of alum-treated wool and slowly brought the dye to a simmer – one hour and then the long process of cooling (I am realising that dyeing is more about waiting than doing!!!!!!!!!!!). The result is a green-yellow, almost exactly the colour shown for Tansy-dyed fibre in Jenny Dean’s book (Wild Color) !!! My photo is not clear because the drying line insists on vibrating but you can clearly see the colours – left to right – the brown of the lichen-dyed wool from a few days ago), the green-yellow of the Tansy-dyed wool and the tan of the undyed wool.
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three shanks of wool, dyed with the lichen Usnea (left), dyed with Tansy (center) and raw wool (treated with alum)
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I wrote my poem to the heady yet sleepy smells of the Tansy boiling in its dye pot. I remembered the living Tansy, growing in the ditch last summer, each flower cluster hiding a sleepy bumblebee that had to be shaken from its resting. I was also reminded in my reading that Tansy was used so often at funerals in New England in the 19th century that people associated its smell with death.
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Tansy in the ditch
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sleep before dyeing
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Tanacetum vulgare L. – Common Tansy, Mugwort, Bitter Buttons
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Bitter Buttons hover in the dye pot
simmering on the kitchen stove
drowsy scent of camomile
camphor and rosemary
liquid amber, saffron sallow
jaundiced pale of Tansy
reclines in the roadside ditch
each flat-topped cluster
hibernaculum
for a furred and yellow
unconcerned
and mellow
bumblebee
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
harvesting colour – onion skin yellow
About a month ago, I stuffed an old white cotton shirt into a pickle jar with onion skins and cider vinegar (https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/harvesting-colour-onion-skins-in-a-pickle-jar/). It was all I could do not to open the jar early to see how everything was progressing, but I was patient. On Friday, I opened the jar to see the results!
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the pickle jar containing cider vinegar, my old shirt, and a few handfuls of onion skins
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cotton shirt and onion skins released to the sink
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onion skins picked away to reveal yellow and maroon
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a rinse with water
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and my ‘new’ shirt hanging on the line to dry!
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I am so pleased with the results. The yellows are bright and an old shirt is wearable again. The dried cloth is soft and smells clean and fresh. And, most important, I have another poem to add to my growing collection.
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transformation
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cotton shirt
soft and comfortable
but stained, unwearable
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stuffed into
a pickle jar
onion skin and vinegar
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thirty days –
yellow cheer,
saffron and sienna
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stains concealed
tears dried
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
the colour of October #2 (Tansy yellow)
So many colours! The orange of the big pumpkin on our doorstep. The reds and yellows of the Red Maple leaves in piles under our feet. The bright white of the moon this month. The golden colour of the needles of the Tamarack now falling with every breath of wind.
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The colour that has inspired me this week is the yellow of Tansy (Tansy vulgare L.) still bright along the road in Fredericton. The flowers are like brilliant yellow buttons.
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I couldn’t duplicate the colour with the yellows in my watercolour palette, but after layers of alternating yellow and white, I have realised how wonderful the yellows of nature really are!
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October 27, 2013 ‘Tansy’ Jane Tims
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In a month’s time, the bright yellow heads of the Tansy will be black!
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
a moment of beautiful – traffic lights
the space: above the roadway, at an intersection, in the fog
the beautiful: green, yellow and red traffic lights, seeming to hover, like jewels in the fog
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Traffic lights!!! Beautiful??? Perhaps you will never agree. But I think those lights, when seen on a foggy day, suspended as if from the sky itself, are as beautiful as jewels. Emerald, topaz and ruby.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2012
yellow rain
In October, we still have at least one more autumn display, the shedding of the tamarack needles. Tamarack is a deciduous tree and loses most of its needles this time of year. We have a number of tamaracks on our property, so the golden needles fall as a constant ‘rain’ during late October and early November.
Tamarack (Larix laracina (DuRoi) K. Koch) is also known as Hackmatack, American or Black Larch and, in French, épinette rouge. Tamarack is a large tree, with a narrow pyramidal canopy and pendulous branches.
In my head, I can still hear the voice of my undergraduate botany professor, who was interested in the origin of growth forms of plants, saying, “the tamarack has, here, both short shoots and long shoots”. The short shoots emerge from the sides of branches and resemble small bunches or tufts of needles, and the long shoots grow at the ends of each branch and are elongated, with single needles along the length. The needles are small and generally very soft to the touch compared to other conifers.
Today, there is evidence that the ‘amber rain’ has begun, just a few needles on every outside surface. By the end of next week, the windshield of the car will need a swipe of the wipers to clear the yellow needles.
Tamarack needles on the frozen water of the birdbath
Amber Rain
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autumn fades
bright carpets
swept away
pale ghosts rattle
from beech and oak
limp rags hang
on frosted pumpkin vines
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but still
a touch of autumn
stands of larch
yellow in the afternoon
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and now
a gust of wind
begins
the amber rain
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pelting needles
fill the air
soaking ground
strewing gold
everywhere
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fairy straw
washed to the edge
of puddle shores
flooding borders
of roads, driven
by wind, a storm
of gold
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needles patter
gentle chatter
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where begins
the amber rain?
is it larch
or hackmatack,
juniper
or tamarack?
who sends the amber rain?
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© Jane Tims 1992
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