Found and Ground
Found And Ground
A practical guide to making your own foraged paints
Caroline Ross
Search Press
Do not be daunted. That is my first suggestion before you begin to read this title and think…this is too much. Let me lead you through my thoughts.
About the writer and artist who is Caroline Ross
A life in the arts, a life in nature. The two run through Ross like a stream, never-ending or separating. In my eyes, she is a key example of someone who lives a life this way, it is no office career, left on a Friday returned to on a Monday, This is an artist who needs to be one, no choice in the matter. Some of us find our place and it looks like she has. Her writing thus embodies a spirt of knowledge led by real life - it is truthful and humble. She teaches from her studio and at venues all over the UK mainly; based in Hexham, North East. ( I too live within this area, so can see how she feels in tune with the habitat of nature which resides in this part of the UK)
Finding more than paint…
One of the main senses I felt coming from this book was its own encouragement to return to our core need - nature. Then the art naturally flows. As a perfectionist, I live in the shadow of making with meaning and always from a blank canvas - I want to make my own - from ground zero as it were - then I can truly own it. This book helps us find so much more than making our own paint. It helps us to renew, come back to ourselves and our needs and our very natures - the ones we were born with and may have left behind.
Connection
Thematically this plaits through the book. Connection mainly now with another human but with nature and not just any - the land you live in, the location.
Things you might want to know
The book is doused in imagery to make the visual connection between paint source and paint finished and made. Land imagery, such as countryside images or rural settings are covered.
educational imagery - how the paint will look in each stage, the raw states, the bottles we could use to house the paint.
This is not about simply a nice treasure hunt to find nice items to bring home, this is sourcing for s point - so the book evolves by starting off with the “search” (foraging) and moved to what the gifts we have gathered can be used to make. The last main section explores the paint making, using so many different colours and materials..finally ink making is the last point.
If we find that this is something we are really enjoying it, advice is given where we can plan the next steps and also next reading we want to channel our minds into.
My favourite
The ink making section 114 onwards. I use sepia ink in many of my own sketches and I love the idea of traditional pens being used. So this sits well. When we can recognise how the material covered really lifts our own practice - then the will to use this book will come.
