strange brews

 poor mick is worried about me spilling some of my nasty looking brews! i have been using the wood-burner to help concentrate my oak and walnut liqours by evaparation - using a wide stainless steel bowl allows a large surface area, but this is always risky as i tend to be a bit clumsy - no slips so far though

for once i have been noting results:

other ongoing brews are onion skin and budleia .......?

also during my walks i scavenged* some cotinus leaves which still had colour - after getting some information about obtaining blue prints from cotinus i tried a few bundles - got some lovely prints, but nothing i would really call blue although i was close in one case 

cotinus + some sumac, cotton fabric, wallpaper, folded bundle

cotinus + odd sumac leaf on dupion silk and hot press watercolour

as above

the silk and watercolour paper gave the best print definition where the lower leaf surface was in contact, but the cotton and lining paper gave pleasing results too - fresher leaves would probably have yielded different colours but in december i was limited to what i could find

the process involved iron water and alum, i know that my alum solution was correct but suspect that the iron water was too strong, the fabric soaked in it took on a rather more yellow colour than i would have wanted - i will try again with a solution in which the sediment has settled more, leaving a lighter coloured solution - but my stock of leaves is small so i will be cautious

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* at one stage this involved knocking on a stranger's door and getting down on my knees on their wet lawn! i'm sure they think i'm bonkers, but i know i am so that's ok