There are so many flowers blooming right now. Of course I decided to see if I could make color with them. I had some successes and some failures.
YAMABUKI (Japanese Kerria) was a success. A bright yellow, as hoped. These are from the Kawasaki’s bush that flowered abundantly this year.
BUGLEWEED produced a palid purple-grey. It’s a pretty color but not strong enough to use as is. I let this one go, but might try again with some chemical additives. Maybe a pH change…
VIOLA picked from the over-wintered planter made a very pretty bright purple. But it faded to a light purple even as it extracted. Makes me wonder about timing the removal of the material.
DEADNETTLE turned green. We have a lot of this growing around, so I hoped it would surprise me but it did not.
MAGNOLIA turned a lovely wine red. It bloomed gloriously this year and the spent petals worked so well I also did a water extraction – color tea – and tried a lake pigment. The lake is looking like it will be olive-brown after the addition of alum and soda.
FUTATSUYAMA RED EARTH is one I have been working on for a little while. This is dirt from the local mountain and I have some in my garden walkway. I sieved a handful and let it dry for a week, then did the grinding yesterday. It is so pigmented that it stained my ceramic mortar.
NOTES
Everything I selected was within 10 meters of my front door.
I picked the petals apart from the stamens and leaves.
Extraction was roughly 3-4 parts loose petals to 1 part ethanol
